Can someone please explain this to me?

The New Neo Posted on by

Israel releases terrorists in anticipation of talks with Palestinians.

At this point I can’t say I really understand any part of it. These periodic releases—and periodic talks—keep happening, and there’s no reason to expect that anything good will come of it, and plenty of reason to expect bad. I am puzzled as to what such talks would gain for Israelis:

Netanyahu said somewhat elliptically that being involved in a diplomatic process will make it much easier for Israel to act ”“ and stop actions ”“ in the area.

Israel, he said, had three interests in re-engaging now with the Palestinians: To try to find a solution to the conflict; to prevent negative trends against Israel in the international arena from gaining steam; and to allow Israel to better prepare to deal with the “challenges and opportunities” in the region.

Everything clear now?

This justificaton is particularly laughable, in a bitter-laugh sort of way: “to prevent negative trends against Israel in the international arena from gaining steam.” These “trends” have gained so much steam in the last forty years or so despite Israel’s cooperation in a gazillion negotiations and prisoner releases that they are capable of driving a dynamo that could power the entire country.

As for “finding a solution to the conflict” through talking—does anyone realistically think that has any chance of happening? The Palestinians have given no indication of wanting to find solutions except 100% on their terms. They are winning the propaganda war, they get aid and comfort from all over the world, and if they ever “solved” the conflict they’d have to face the extreme economic and political dysfunction of their own country (I assume it would have become a country at that point). Why would they want to ever do that?

Maybe the key to this move is something in internal Israeli politics? I’m not conversant enough with that arena to say. Perhaps some readers can shed a bid of light.

And by the way, in the past whenever I’ve written about Israel, the posts have almost immediately drawn trolls. We’ll see what happens with this one.

[NOTE: One odd fact from the article:

They [the Israeli negotiating team] were expected to hold a preliminary meeting Monday at US Secretary of State John Kerry’s home with Palestinian negotiators Saeb Erekat and Mohammad Shtayyeh, and then begin the negotiations in earnest on Tuesday.

John Kerry’s home? Doesn’t that seem rather odd? Kerry lives in Louisburg Square in Boston’s Beacon Hill, by the way, one of the ritziest old-money spots in the city:

The Greek Revival houses around the square reflect the rarefied privilege enjoyed by the 19th century upper class in Beacon Hill. The Atlantic Monthly editor William Dean Howells, teacher A. Bronson Alcott and his daughter, author Louisa May Alcott, are among the famous people who lived there in the 19th Century. One of the last private residences built on Louisburg Square was 2 Louisburg Square, built in 1847 for wealthy merchant and philanthropist Thomas Handasyd Perkins Jr., known as ‘short-arm Tom,’ who lived at 1 Joy Street.

Currently it is one of the most expensive residential neighborhoods in the country, and an oft-included landmark in walking tours and guidebooks. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry owns a townhouse on Louisburg Square. The average cost of a townhouse on the street exceeds $6 million and reaches as high as $20 million.

Of course, Kerry has many other homes, too. Perhaps it’s one of the others we’re talking about? But technically, only the Louisburg Square home could rightly be called “his”; the others are in wife Teresa’s name.

A lot of people think Kerry is rich because he married Teresa, who was rich because she inherited the money from her late husband John Heinz. That’s indeed how Teresa got her enormous wealth, and it’s also true that Kerry’s wealth increased tremendously on marrying her (at least, his access to the perks of her wealth did). But he was a fairly wealthy man through his own inheritance before he ever married her.

It’s interesting to note that Kerry’s wealth was no issue for the Democrats in the 2004 election, although it was unearned by him or his wife, whereas Romney’s almost entirely earned wealth was considered an awful thing by Democrats in 2012. One can only conclude that earned wealth is more philosophically objectionable to liberals than inherited wealth—at least, when it’s earned by a Republican.

Oh, and of course, Bain Capital BAD. It seems like only yesterday that Bain was the bane of so many people’s existence. But it was only a year ago.]

Manning acquitted of most serious charge, convicted of lesser ones

The New Neo Posted on by

The Bradley Manning verdict just in:

A military judge Tuesday acquitted Pfc. Bradley Manning of aiding the enemy ”” the most serious charge the Army intelligence analyst faced for leaking hundreds of thousands of classified military reports and diplomatic cables.

Manning was convicted on nearly all of the lesser charges considered by the judge, Army Col. Denise Lind, in connection with the largest breach of classified material in U.S. history.

Manning had pled quilty to some charges previously. Now the case goes into the sentencing phase.

I haven’t followed it all that closely, but this verdict doesn’t surprise me. It’s also somewhat different from what Snowden could expect if he ever returns to face justice, because Manning was a member of the armed forces and as such comes under the system of military justice—which is different from the civilian justice system.

I have a feeling—it’s just a hunch, nothing more—that this is a more lenient verdict than would have been handed down in the same fact situation mid-twentieth century or earlier. Of course, the same fact situation could not have occurred without the ubiquity of computers, which make acts such as Manning’s far easier. Who could smuggle out tons of papers? I suppose on microfilm, but that would require a technical middleman to photograph the documents, wouldn’t it? And microfilm would still be relatively bulky (not so very “micro”) compared to a computer stick.

Maybe it’s time I pushed a few products here, for a change

The New Neo Posted on by

I keep forgetting to sell things.

But every now and then I remember: money! Amazon! And not just at Christmastime. After all, people have birthdays and stuff like that all year round. So why not get a present or two through neo-neocon’s Amazon portal?

Click on this puppy if you have Ad Blocker (a link is also in “Categories” under “Amazon orders” on the right sidebar). If you don’t have Ad Blocker, towards the top of the right sidebar you’ll see a main Amazon widget, with some more specialized ones if you scroll down, any of which you can click on to get to Amazon and order.

But enough of logistics. I’m here to tell you about—Tangoes!!

No, not the dance, and my abysmal failure at learning it.

The game:

tangoes

It doesn’t look like much, and it’s very inexpensive (the latter’s a feature, not a bug). But for any child who likes spatial puzzles it is one of the very very best. It’s recommended for over 5 years old, although it depends on the child as to whether they’ll be ready for it yet at that age. My own son used to adore it, and it was good for the airplane.

Adults like it too. I sure did.

The Clintons are reported to be livid at comparisons to Weiner/Abedin (and who knows what “livid” means, anyway?)

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s the story:

“The Clintons are upset with the comparisons that the Weiners seem to be encouraging ”” that Huma is ”˜standing by her man’ the way Hillary did with Bill, which is not what she in fact did,’’ said a top state Democrat…

A longtime Hillary aide and Clinton friend, Abedin’s surprisingly unequivocal support of her husband after his bombshell admission Tuesday that he engaged in salacious online sexting well after he resigned in disgrace from Congress in 2011 left the Clintons stunned, continued the source.

What an odd notion, if true. Why would the Clintons of all people, be stunned? Surely they are aware that politicians can get into political trouble for infidelities of various sorts and make promises to spouse and/or the general public that it won’t happen again, and then fail to live up to those promises, get caught, and have to face some sort of consequences? And surely they know that even the most capable of political wives can wind up performing ye olde “Stand By Your Man” routine? Although in the immortal words of Hillary herself (and by the way, for those who forget what a pretty woman Clinton was twenty years ago, this might serve as a reminder):

So, what’s the big difference? Is it that Bill’s peccadillos were more conventional in that they involved actual sex with real live people in the non-virtual world (despite his use of the legalistic definition of “sexual relations” in his Paula Jones deposition, which enabled him to later claim that what he did with Lewinsky didn’t actually fall under that heading)? Compared to Weiner, the former president was positively old-fashioned in his procilivites. Is it Weiner’s relative kinkiness that’s the problem here? Or the fact that the Weiner/Abedins are reminding people of what was hardly Bill and Hillary’s finest hour, a memory the Clintons would rather have people forget if Hillary is to run successfully in 2016?

Or is it that, for the Clintons, the lying and the standing-by were justified because the stakes were so very much higher?:

“The Clintons are pissed off that Weiner’s campaign is saying that Huma is just like Hillary,’’ said the source. “How dare they compare Huma with Hillary? Hillary was the first lady. Hillary was a senator. She was secretary of state.”

This is a curious remark, because actually Hillary was only the first of these things when the Lewinsky story broke, and she’d only been a first lady of Arkansas when the original “standing by” occurred in 1992, back when Bill was running for his first term as president.

So maybe that’s the difference. Maybe Hillary wouldn’t have stood by for a measly mayoral first-ladyhood.

And the moral of the story? Perhaps it’s bad luck to have Bill Clinton perform your wedding, as happened just three short years ago when Weiner and Abedin tied the knot.

As for the use of the word “livid” (the headline of the Post story I’ve been discussing is “Bill and Hillary Clinton are ‘livid’ at comparisons to Weiner’s sexcapades and Huma’s forgiveness”), it has long puzzled me. When I first learned its meaning in high school—because it appears in quite a few old literary works—I was told it meant “pale” even though people often used it to signify “red.” At any rate, it was a color, not a feeling. But then I kept seeing it used to mean any of those things, and the NY Post headline about the Clintons and the Weiner/Abedins seems to be using it to mean “angry,” as far as I can tell.

Here’s the complete lowdown on the word “livid,” everything you ever wanted to know about it for those who are curious about that sort of thing. Livid is apparently a word of many colors—specifically red, white, and/or blue. How apropos! It can also be used to mean “angry,” although that’s a much more recent practice.

[NOTE: Cross-posted at Legal Insurrection.]

On concealed carry and decision-making: Branca’s reply

The New Neo Posted on by

There was a fairly heated discussion in the comments thread in response to Anthony Branca’s remarks on the behavior of private citizens who are licensed to carry weapons, which appeared in this post over the weekend.

Just to refresh your memory, here are Branca’s words again:

I’d say the biggest misconception is that if you’re carrying a gun you get to take shit from fewer people. The reality is exactly opposite. When you’re carrying a gun you have to take shit from everybody. Except, of course, the guy actually trying to kill you. You can shoot him. That’s the tradeoff. The gun gives you the practical means to end the life of anybody in your immediate vicinity. In exchange for that power it is your moral and legal responsibility to conduct yourself in such a way as to make that outcome as unlikely as possible. The last thing you want to do if you’re carrying is to be the one who even inadvertently escalates a non-deadly encounter to a deadly one. Confronting the drunk loudmouth who’s making a scene at the table next to you in a restaurant, for example, may be seen as a potentially very bad idea if you think a few steps down the line. Best to just let it go, and just go, leave. One of my primary tactical rules of self-defense is to vacate the area at the first sign of a red flag. Let the bad stuff go down while you’re safely somewhere else.

And here’s the start of the reaction of commenters here to what he wrote. There’s a lot of pro and con—some criticizing, some supporting.

That post of mine was cross-posted at Legal Insurrection yesterday, and sure enough, a somewhat similar discussion ensued, but in that case Branca himself took part in the give-and-take. I though you might be interested in following it, so here’s Branca’s response:

Sure. I believe we have both a legal and moral duty not to take another humans’ life unless it is truly necessary. If the necessity can be avoided by conducting ourselves more prudently and cautiously, then I think that’s the right way to go.

I don’t see CCW holders as legal avengers out to make up for the quite glaring shortcomings of the criminal justice system. That’s not our job. Our job is to defend our families and ourselves from violent criminal predation. And, should that necessity arise in my personal life, I intend to do so with all necessary force. I encourage all others to do the same, should they be so moved.

I’m fully aware that some states have laws that allow the defensive use of deadly force in a broader context than I’ve just described. For the most parts those laws provide for presumptions of innocence/reasonableness intended to keep politically motivated prosecutors from targeting people who have defended themselves in their homes, places of work, or personal vehicles. Texas, of course, has the interesting provision for the use of deadly force in defense of property, subject to plenty of conditions.

But I personally would not shoot someone over a property crime alone. Just wouldn’t do it. I live in a two story house, bedrooms are all upstairs. If everyone’s tucked in, and the bad guys come in to rob the place, and they stay downstairs, I’m going to call 911, keep my nice safe perch at the top of the stairs, and let them take whatever they want from the first floor. That’s why I have insurance, and why my taxes pay for the police.

If they try to come up the stairs, on the other hand, it’s likely to get quite noisy.

But those are the elements I’ve chosen to build into my personal legally sound self-defense strategy. Different people will make different choices in their own legally sound self-defense strategy. I only hope to help them ensure that those choices are well-informed.

Seems to me he’s saying that each person with a legal concealed weapon must make the decision for him/herself as to what the goal of carrying a weapon is, and how far he/she is willing to go to protect self, family, or others. The answers can, and will, be different for different people, but need to be very well-though-out in advance, with knowledge of the law and ethics.

Those who would ban legal concealed carry don’t want anyone but the police making such decisions. But, funny thing, criminals will carry concealed weapons, illegally, and you can pretty much count on the fact that their decisions about using them won’t be made quite so thoughtfully.

Bill Cosby, the Zimmerman case, and guns

The New Neo Posted on by

Look, I want to give Bill Cosby his props. He’s been speaking up courageously for years on the problems within the black community, and he’s gotten a lot of flak for it. It can’t have been easy for him.

Here are some excerpts from the address Cosby gave to the NAACP in 2004 on the 50th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education. You may have heard of Cosby’s speech because it got a lot of press, and evoked a lot of backlash. But have you ever read it? The guy did not pull his punches:

Now, look, I’m telling you. It’s not what they’re doing to us. It’s what we’re not doing. 50 percent drop out. Look, we’re raising our own ingrown immigrants. These people are fighting hard to be ignorant. There’s no English being spoken, and they’re walking and they’re angry. Oh God, they’re angry and they have pistols and they shoot and they do stupid things. And after they kill somebody, they don’t have a plan. Just murder somebody. Boom. Over what? A pizza?…

Five or six different children — same woman, eight, ten different husbands or whatever. Pretty soon you’re going to have to have DNA cards so you can tell who you’re making love to. You don’t who this is. It might be your grandmother. I’m telling you, they’re young enough. Hey, you have a baby when you’re twelve. Your baby turns thirteen and has a baby, how old are you? Huh? Grandmother…

I’m telling you Christians, what’s wrong with you? Why can’t you hit the streets? Why can’t you clean it out yourselves? It’s our time now, ladies and gentlemen. It is our time. And I’ve got good news for you. It’s not about money. It’s about you doing something ordinarily that we do — get in somebody else’s business. It’s time for you to not accept the language that these people are speaking, which will take them nowhere. What the hell good is Brown v. Board of Education if nobody wants it?

It’s worth reading the whole thing, but that’s the basic idea.

So one might think that Cosby would have something insightful to say about the Zimmerman/Martin case. And in a sense he does. In this interview, he downplayed the possible role of racism in the killing, which is a valuable message. He also said not to trust the media reports on these things because they tend to distort them. True enough. In addition, he said the prosecution failed to prove its case; can’t argue with that assessment, either. But Cosby had the following curious things to say on the self-defense and firearm possession aspects of the case [emphasis mine]:

I know that if you have a gun, it changes your whole feeling about what you can tell people, about how people better do what you say. Your mind can turn in such a way that you have a sense of control and power. I see a thing and so forth and so on [unintelligible] OK just stay where you are and don’t, but I got a gun.

Let’s not go into a racial discussion unless we really have something there. But we do know that he [Zimmerman] had a gun. And we do know that the Florida state law says you have a right to defend yourself, that means both people. So you have a gun and you come up to me and I don’t have a gun, but then you show me your gun and I become frightened and according to the State of Florida, I have a right to defend myself. According to the State of Florida, the person with the gun has the right to defend him or herself. I mean this is getting out of line.

What on earth does the fact situation Cosby describes have to do with the Zimmerman/Martin case, except in Cosby’s imagination? Does Cosby think that Zimmerman walked up to Martin and flashed a gun, and Martin “became frightened”? If so, why did Zimmerman then wait all that time while his head was being bashed on the pavement, screaming at the top of his lungs for help, before using that gun on Martin?

What’s more, as little as Cosby seems to know about the evidence in the Zimmerman case of how the confrontation went down, he unfortunately seems to know even less about the responsibilities and attitudes of most legal concealed carriers in general. For that, ask attorney Andrew Branca, who is not directly addressing Cosby’s statements in the following, but might as well be:

AB: I’d say the biggest misconception is that if you’re carrying a gun you get to take shit from fewer people. The reality is exactly opposite. When you’re carrying a gun you have to take shit from everybody. Except, of course, the guy actually trying to kill you. You can shoot him. That’s the tradeoff. The gun gives you the practical means to end the life of anybody in your immediate vicinity. In exchange for that power it is your moral and legal responsibility to conduct yourself in such a way as to make that outcome as unlikely as possible. The last thing you want to do if you’re carrying is to be the one who even inadvertently escalates a non-deadly encounter to a deadly one. Confronting the drunk loudmouth who’s making a scene at the table next to you in a restaurant, for example, may be seen as a potentially very bad idea if you think a few steps down the line. Best to just let it go, and just go, leave. One of my primary tactical rules of self-defense is to vacate the area at the first sign of a red flag. Let the bad stuff go down while you’re safely somewhere else.

There’s every indication that Zimmerman tried to do just that and did not “confront” Martin, but that “the bad stuff” came to get him anyway. And yet Cosby’s point of view and his state of ignorance on the case is mild compared to that of so many people who continue to opine about it. You know the drill: Zimmerman the racist; Zimmerman followed Martin; Zimmerman confronted Martin.

It might have been understandable for many people to believe these things for the first few weeks after the killing. But in the meantime there’s been a trial here. With evidence, yet. And anyone who paid attention to the trial, anyone who listened to the recording of Zimmerman’s non-emergency call, anyone who looked at the evidence, should know better.

But this case has something for everyone, and it’s the gift that keeps on giving. Want to rail against the racism of white people? Want to take on Stand Your Ground? Want to campaign for more gun control? Then talk about this case.

Cosby’s message is about gun control, an issue about which he feels strongly. From the start of the Zimmerman case, long before the trial, he saw it as an issue about guns and made it clear he didn’t think Zimmerman should have been carrying one. Cosby has a reason to feel so strongly about guns (he’s not against possessing one in the home, by the way): his only son was shot and killed in 1997 while changing a tire, by a man who was attempting to rob him.

The man who killed Ennis Cosby was a criminal, a Ukrainian immigrant 18 years of age named Mikhail Markhasev who had come here with his mother at the age of nine. Although I’ve been unable to ascertain whether he had a concealed carry permit for the gun he used to kill Ennis Cosby, it is nearly impossible to believe that he did. Not only his age but his background (he was a gang member and had spent six months in a correctional facility after having attacked two African-American men at a gas station with a knife) argues against it. So what gun law would have stopped him, and what concealed carry ban would have changed anything? The concealed carry laws in California, where the crime took place, are among the strictest in the nation, by the way.

It’s not at all difficult to understand why Bill Cosby might have a special reason to want to keep guns away from violent criminals. We all would like to do that, but we have yet to figure out a way to accomplish it. George Zimmerman was not a criminal, however, and the fact situation of the Martin killing bears no resemblance to that of the Ennis Cosby murder. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that, if Zimmerman had not had a gun with him that night, it would have been Zimmerman who would have ended up either gravely injured (brain damage) or even dead.

The “reality” of Kate’s bump: one more piece of evidence of how far down the road to madness the world has gone

The New Neo Posted on by

Here it is:

“I think what Kate [Middleton] has done for new moms has really given them a tremendous gift,” thebump.com editor Lori Richmond told ABC News.

The duchess glowed as she debuted her little prince outside St. Mary’s Hospital in London earlier this week, and moms around the world noticed that post-baby bump she proudly showed off.

“Even the way she was holding her hands, cradling her belly, really framing it, I think that was shocking for some people to see, but it was wonderful for people to see because that’s what moms really look like after they’ve given birth,” Richmond said…

Shocking!!

Here’s a photo of the appearance of Kate they’re talking about, one day after she gave birth to her first child:

katebaby2

Here’s another one taken at the same time, somewhat more revealing of this “bump” (and while we’re at it, please see a previous post of mine for my discourse on the use of the word “bump” to refer to pregnancy matters):

katebaby

Once again—shocking, as Richmond says (and yes, that’s sarcasm on my part). The only shocking thing about it is that Richmond finds it shocking, and that she actually thinks “that’s what moms really look like after they’ve given birth.”

Well, maybe your mom—if she weighed 100 pounds soaking wet pre-pregnancy, gained a modest but adequate amount of weight during her pregnancy, and had several stylists consulting on her clothes and blow-drying her hair while in the hospital before her big reveal.

Kate’s a beautiful woman, and she looked positively lovely that day and every day, and I assume the exigencies of her role as Prince William’s wife and Duchess of Cambridge dictate her paying a ton of attention to her appearance. I wish her well; she clearly is up to that formidable task. But the idea that her body, post-pregnancy or pre, or her style or face or hair or smile represent any sort of shockingly grim reality and normalcy is laughable.

The article goes on with its fantasyworld masquerading as information:

Many new moms feel a lot of pressure to lose the weight, partly fueled by a tabloid culture that puts every Hollywood mom’s body under the microscope after she has a baby.

“I think the pressures to immediately bounce back after birth are out of control today,” ABC News senior medical contributor Dr. Jennifer Ashton said. “After delivery, it takes a while for that muscle to contract and that process takes a couple weeks.”

Ah yes, a couple of weeks, folks. Be patient.

Actually, if Dr. Ashton had specified she was talking about the uterus, that takes approximately six weeks (not “a couple”) to return to its pre-pregnancy size. But we are not merely talking about gynecological organs here, are we? We’re talking about other muscles that have been stretched tremendously, plus skin, and a fat pad that can be quite small or quite large.

In naturally thin people like Kate (and if you look at her family, it’s pretty clear that thinness is a family trait), weight loss and returning to pre-pregnancy form often happens fairly quickly. I’ve seen it in several naturally-thin friends of mine; the weight falls off them effortlessly, and in some cases they even become alarmingly thin afterwards while still eating plenty. But for the rest of us mere mortals—well, let’s just say that most never quite return to the exact same shape as before.

But I’m not through with the article yet:

ABC News’ Bianna Golodryga ventured out in New York City with her son, Jake, to find out what moms really think of Kate’s “mummy tummy.”

“I feel good that she showed it because that’s the reality,” one mom in Central Park said.

“I think it’s a very cool thing that she did that rather than hiding it,” said another at Kidville, a center that provides educational classes and programs for children.

The duchess has turned the focus to the baby, rather than the bump.

“That’s really where the time should be spent,” Richmond said. “Now worrying about how you look and not succumbing to that pressure to be so perfect so quickly.”

I would say that not only has Kate succumbed to that pressure, she is the poster child for that pressure, if people have come to think that her look and body is the picture of reality. And none of this is meant as even a whisper of criticism for Kate, who I think has managed to look stunning and project a lovely warmth and joy on becoming a mother, which is what people expect of her. In more ways than one, she delivers.

Maybe…

The New Neo Posted on by

…Strauss-Kahn should just run for mayor of New York.

And lest you say “he can’t; he’s French,” I don’t see any impediment. I could be missing something, but the rules say nothing about being a US citizen:

Requirements:
The Mayor is elected every four years by the entire city. He or she needs to be 18 years old and a resident of NYC on Election Day.

I know, I know—there’s a little detail of needing to be acquitted first, and then getting to NY to establish residence. Maybe next time. By then, non-citizens in New York may be allowed to vote in municipal elections.

Obama and the phony scandals

The New Neo Posted on by

Pat Smith has something to say to President Obama:

The mother of a Benghazi victim is furious about the new White House strategy of calling the terrorist attack and many other scandals plaguing the Obama administration “fake” or “phony.”

Patricia Smith, mother of Sean Smith, who was slain in the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack, lashed out on “Your World” on the Fox News Channel…

“I don’t believe [Obama] anymore,” Smith said. “He’s wrong. My son is dead. How could that be phony?”

According to Smith, she has been given no answers about what happened that night. She said the administration told her she “didn’t need to know.”

And this despite promises Smith had gotten earlier from Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden, at the ceremony for the welcoming of the caskets, that “they would get back to me to tell me what happened.” Well, Smith has yet to hear about that from them, and now insult has been added to injury when Obama used the word “phony” in his speech at Knox College on July 24 (full text here) to describe the scandals he’s been facing lately.

The speech was not specifically about Benghazi, of course; it was about the economy. Let’s see what he actually said:

With an endless parade of distractions, political posturing and phony scandals, Washington has taken its eye off the ball. And I am here to say this needs to stop. Short-term thinking and stale debates are not what this moment requires. Our focus must be on the basic economic issues that the matter most to you ”“ the people we represent.

Pat Smith’s outrage is completely understandable, as is her focus on the scandal represented by the events in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, and this administration’s role in them as well as its callous dismissal of her concerns. But that’s only one of the many “scandals” to which Obama was referring and scoffing at—another would be the use of the IRS for the persecution and suppression of political enemies of the Democrats, an activity that Obama himself originally labeled as “inexcusable” and “an outrage.” But apparently his “outrage” was actually directed at those who would investigate what the IRS had done, and who are trying to figure out how high up the buck stopped.

A closer study of the president’s speech reveals even greater ironies. Let’s look at the words “distractions” and “political posturing” that come right before “phony.” Is not Obama’s labeling of the scandals that beset him as “phony” one of the most blatant cases of “political posturing” we’ve yet seen from a president whose specialty seems to be just that? As for “distractions,” who is it who has been distracted from dealing with the economy—which, after all, was the subject matter of the Knox College speech—for virtually his entire four and a half years in office? And have not those “distractions” been almost entirely self-imposed? Everything else came first for Obama—Obamacare, immigration “reform,” all the pet issues of the liberal platform—and those “pivots” to the economy he kept announcing were mere rhetorical flourishes while his true agenda lay elsewhere.

In the paragraph above from his Knox College speech, the president followed with, “Our focus must be on the basic economic issues that the matter most to you.” True enough. But where has he been all those years?

Obama’s characterization of the investigations into events such as Benghazi and the IRS targeting as “phony” is also part and parcel of another characteristic he’s exhibited ever since his first presidential campaign, which is to belittle as beneath him those issues and questions he doesn’t feel like addressing. The sad thing is that, with the full and sycophantic cooperation of most of the mainstream media, that evasive and sophistic tactic didn’t stop him from being re-elected.

Hey, here’s another thing to worry about

The New Neo Posted on by

Are you a tall postmenopausal woman? Apparently your cancer risk is higher than if you were shorter, according to this helpful article. But the author never defines “tall,” so readers have no idea at what point the diminishing returns for height begin to show up. And of course there’s nothing a person could do about her height anyway (wearing flats doesn’t count).

What’s more, to make things even more convoluted, increased height confers cardiovascular benefits. So, does the height evidence constitute a wash?

Sometimes I think articles like this one—and articles about health in general, even in medical journals (or maybe especially in medical journals?)—are designed to increase our anxiety and maximize the number of worried well among us. The effects they describe, including this one for height, tend to be very small. Finding tend to be expressed in terms of percentages—such as “20%” more likely to”—rather than absolute numbers (“6 rather than 5 in 100,000,” which is the same as “20% more likely to” but sounds a lot less compelling). Plus, it’s often very hard to know whether a seeming effect is causation or correlation. And it’s not unusual for half the studies to contradict the other half.

We are upset by our cholesterol, our weight, our bone densities, our handedness (left-handed, like me? BAD!), and just about every other figure that can be measured. So, what to do? Worry? Relax? Obsessive focus? Blissful ignorance? Happy medium, anyone?

Introverts of the world…

The New Neo Posted on by

…just act like an extrovert and you’ll be happier.

Well, of course. I’ve been attempting to do that, with a modicum of success, for decades. I call myself an extroverted introvert.

And Rogers and Hammerstein were well aware of the phenomenon (here’s the original recording I was raised on, with Gertrude Lawrence):

[NOTE: By the way, I just learned via that font of knowledge, Wiki, that the real Anna was Eurasian, but kept her ancestry secret until long after her death:

[Anna] Leonowens was the Eurasian daughter of an Indian Army soldier and widow of Thomas Owens, a clerk and hotel keeper. She had arrived in Singapore two years previously, claiming to be the genteel widow of an officer and explaining her dark complexion by stating that she was Welsh by birth. Her deception was not detected until long after her death, and had still not come to light when The King and I was written.

Here’s the real, as opposed to the Broadway, Anna:

annasiam

Neither Gertrude Lawrence nor Deborah Kerr. Yeah, but could she sing?]