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CK MacLeod  ZOMBIE CONTENTIONS HAS SHAMBLED…

…OVER TO A NEW LOCATION:  http://zombiecontentions.com/

Please update your bookmarks.  Authors please e-mail the Web Tsar for new passwords.

Posted 03 April 2010 † CK MacLeod § Meta ‡ Comments Off °  | Email This Post Email This Post  | Print This Post Print This Post

Howard Portnoy  Comic Depictions of Mohammed: Knowing When to Hold and When to Fold

Did you hear the latest knee-slapper about Moses? Actually, I don’t have a joke about Moses to share, though if I did and chose to, I wouldn’t need to go into hiding. If the joke were sufficiently tasteless or insulting, the Jewish Anti-Defamation League might issue a statement. Beyond that I know of no organized source or form of ritual retribution I would summarily face for my sacrilege. I wouldn’t need to live in mortal fear that some rabbi would assign a price to my head, instructing his congregants to hunt me down, machete in hand. That is because in my religion—and I suspect in yours—that just isn’t how things are done.

It’s not how they should be done in any religion, but sadly that just isn’t the world we live in.

Much has been written in recent days on the pickle “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone put themselves in by depicting (or rather not depicting by dressing him in a bear costume) the prophet Mohammed in an episode of their popular cartoon series. By now, the absurdly over-the-top reaction of a New York-based jihadist group has been too ubiquitously documented to require reprise here.

Much of what I’ve seen in commentaries adopts the same point of view as an editorial in today’s New York Post titled “Cowardly Central.” The bottom line of the editorial is summed up in a single, closing sentence: “And until the West decides—culturally and collectively—not to take it any longer, it’s only going to get worse.”

The general point is hard to dispute. Behind it is the attitude—in a very real sense it was a warning—that we Americans conveyed in the days and weeks after 9/11 by flying the American flag and displaying posters showing Old Glory and carrying the legend “These colors don’t run.”

But there is an important distinction between that situation and this one. It is one thing to stand tall and hang tough as a nation. It is quite another to do the same when you as an individual have been singled out and have a bounty on your head.

Before you exception me your exceptions, understand: I agree with the general tenet that if you give the islamist cretins an inch, they’ll take a mile, and that we should not tolerate their threats, which are little more in the end than thinly veiled excuses to kill more of us “non-believers.” They certainly needed no provocation to wantonly murder 3,000 innocent Americans on 9/11, and we now know from another headline this morning that they will keep on trying with every last breath in their being.

That eventuality—a day when the last of these monstrous miscreants takes his last breath—is something to be devoutly wished for. But until it arrives, we need to do what it takes to survive—both en masse and as individuals. If that means we resist depicting their prophet, so be it. It’s a small sacrifice to make it if means living to fight another day.

It is a truism of survival that under threatening circumstances it is important first and foremost to keep you head. At this critical juncture in the lives of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, let us all pray that they are able to keep theirs.

Follow me on Twitter or join me at Facebook. You can also reach me at howard.portnoy@gmail.com or by posting a comment below.

Posted 24 April 2010 † Howard Portnoy § International Relations ‡ Comments Off °  | Email This Post Email This Post  | Print This Post Print This Post

adam k  The Liberal Formula

All liberal political programs can be reduced to the formula “money needs to be taken from people with more of it and given to people with less of it.” That’s it. Note that I said “liberal,” and not “Leftist”—Leftists are those who want to replace this society, or significant aspects of it, with another one based on more just principles; liberals want to work within the terms of this society and make it a bit fairer. It’s a simple formula, and maybe following it is sometimes better than alternatives, but the problem is obvious: in a largely middle class, prosperous, free and democratic society, this means taking money from majorities to give to one minority or another. Continue Reading »

Posted 23 April 2010 † adam k § Politics ‡ Comments Off °  | Email This Post Email This Post  | Print This Post Print This Post

Howard Portnoy  New York City Announces that “Rubber Rooms” for Teachers Will Close

According to the New York Post, New York City’s infamous “reassignment centers” for controversial teachers will be closed. The centers, known as “rubber rooms,” cost taxpayers $40 million in salaries alone last year, according to the Department of Education.

Ironically, the topic of rubber rooms was addressed on Glenn Beck’s program yesterday, where he recounted some of the many outrages of a system that refuses to suspend teachers who are awaiting disciplinary hearings for misconduct. In some cases, the waits are measured in years and one or two have dragged on for decades. All the while, teachers earn full pay, which translates to $70,000 or more, for “playing Scrabble, reading or surfing the Internet.”

The Post reports that Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the city’s teachers’ union, which has long backed the arrangement, have reached an agreement that will have the centers close this coming fall.

Currently, rubber rooms are the daily haunt of more than 600 teachers accused of misconduct ranging from educational incompetence to sexual abuse. At a time when New York State is grappling with a $9 billion budget shortfall, news of this spectacular bureaucratic waste is particularly galling.

Under the new arrangement, teachers accused of lesser charges will now report to Department of Education administrative offices or schools to perform clerical duties. In addition, the city will hire more arbitrators and set a strict time limit on the length of investigations in order clear up the logjam in disciplinary hearings.

Posted 15 April 2010 † Howard Portnoy § Schools ‡ Comments (1) °  | Email This Post Email This Post  | Print This Post Print This Post

CK MacLeod  CONTENTION OF THE DAY – No going back (plus, ahem, familiar-sounding bonus)

We are at the beginning of an election campaign like you’ve never seen before!

We are challenged to answer again the momentous questions our Founders raised when they launched mankind’s noblest experiment in human freedom. They made a fundamental choice and changed history for the better. Now it’s our high calling to make that choice: between managed scarcity, or solid growth … between living in dependency on government handouts, or taking responsibility for our lives … between confiscating the earnings of some and spreading them around, or securing everyone’s right to the rewards of their work … between bureaucratic central government, or self-government … between the European social welfare state or the American idea of free market democracy.

What kind of nation do we wish to be? What kind of society will we hand down to our children and future generations? In the coming watershed election, the nature of this unique and exceptional land is at stake. We will choose one of two different paths. And once we make that choice, there’s no going back.

Paul Ryan:  “Should America Bid Farewell to Exceptional Freedom?”

Continue Reading »

Posted 02 April 2010 † CK MacLeod § Contention of the Day § Paul Ryan ‡ Comments (7) ° Tagged: ,  | Email This Post Email This Post  | Print This Post Print This Post

CK MacLeod  Zombie Easeover – UPDATE – NEW LOCATION UNDEAD

Easeover is the Easter/Passover/Spring holiday that syncreticist mischlings like myself celebrate around this time of year.  Seems like a good time to attempt a Zombie Contentions resurrection, too.

The plan is to move this site to a new location, and a new web host, this Sunday.  I hope that after the move we’ll experience fewer slow-downs and service interruptions, and there are other potential advantages to new digs, but that’s mostly tech stuff – and you don’t have to bother your pretty little heads with such things.

I’ve been experimenting with new formats and other changes, but, for now, the new site will look darn near identical to this site, though you may have to re-adjust your browsers if you’ve previously customized ZC viewing options  for bleary, undead eyes.  (I’d bet that a few of you aren’t even aware that you can do that… click on View/Zoom or try Ctrl+ in Firefox or Internet Explorer.)  In future months, when you click on http://ckmac.com/thewholething/, in addition to finding a prominent link to http://zombiecontentions.com, you’ll also likely find the evidence of ongoing experimentation.  Continue Reading »

Posted 02 April 2010 † CK MacLeod § Contributors § Site Aesthetics § Site Features § Site Problems ‡ Comments (2) ° Tagged: , , ,  | Email This Post Email This Post  | Print This Post Print This Post

CK MacLeod  It wasn’t a very good year: 1938 – Hitler’s Gamble by Giles Macdonogh

Considering the centrality of “Munich” to American thinking on foreign policy – and the centrality of the war that followed to what America has become – there’s an argument for considering 1938 to be as important to our understanding of ourselves as other American milestone years – 1776, 1787, 1860, 1929, 1945, and so on.

What makes 1938 unique on such a list is our own absence from the critical scenes.  The effect in Giles MacDonogh’s month by month, sometimes day by day and hour by hour, chronicle of the year, is a portrait of American leadership traced out as though in a photographic negative.

The cloudy, black and gray surface reveals the following:  A world without American leadership is a world that can fall prey to the “gambles” of upstart second-raters and maniacs. A world without American leadership is a world in which secretive, shifting alliances, immoral deals, territorial larceny, and brute force lead, step by step, to chaos and conflagration. It’s a world in which everyone can choose to look the other way when a monster and his brood are appeased, and appeased again, at the expense of races, religions, and nations. It’s also a world in which anyone can get in on the action while the getting seems good, not daring to think that he might be next.

In other words, 1938 marks the last historical moment up to the present day during which other nations could pretend to solve matters of great importance without significant American involvement.  For nearly three more years, the U.S. avoided formal entry into the developing conflict, but the last pretense that the world could take care of itself on its own ended a few months into 1939.  Soon, the argument for acting “while dangers gather,” instead of waiting for whatever day of infamy, would have 60 – 100 million direct casualties and a rubble of nations weighing on its side. Continue Reading »

Posted 02 April 2010 † CK MacLeod § Books § History § International Relations ‡ Comments (23) ° Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  | Email This Post Email This Post  | Print This Post Print This Post

CK MacLeod  Has kind of a Fred Davis feel…

h/t:  Hot Air » Blog Archive » Video: NRSC hails Obama the Promise Keeper!

Posted 01 April 2010 † CK MacLeod § 2010 Elections ‡ Comments (1) °  | Email This Post Email This Post  | Print This Post Print This Post

CK MacLeod  Yes, it stinks – for you (substantive rebuttal on the Palin/McCain endorsement)

Some have accused MadisonConservative, myself, and others of having devoted too much attention to Sarah Palin’s endorsement of John McCain, but MC is right to attach “considerable” importance to Palin’s positions, since, as he says, “people throughout the blogosphere have been casting Palin as the new face of conservatism.”  I’d add:  It’s not only in the blogosphere.  As for McCain, many still consider him the Republican Party’s leader.

So, yeah, MC’s right – Palin endorsing McCain does “stink” – but only if you were hoping that she would lend her charisma exclusively to the cause of rigorously pure conservatism.

Continue Reading »

Posted 31 March 2010 † CK MacLeod § 2010 Elections § Republican Party § Sarah Palin ‡ Comments (23) ° Tagged: , ,  | Email This Post Email This Post  | Print This Post Print This Post

CK MacLeod  RECOMMENDED BROWSING

(your links should be added immediately – though you won’t see them until your next refresh)

Posted 30 March 2010 † CK MacLeod § Link Dump ‡ Comments (132) °  | Email This Post Email This Post  | Print This Post Print This Post

CK MacLeod  Dealt with

Just thought I should note the response by HA’er Madison Conservative – “Actually, Palin’s endorsement of McCain really does stink” – to my post on Palin & McCain.  Here’s the conclusion.

Overall, my point is this: is Sarah Palin a strong conservative? If she is, why is she endorsing McCain? They disagree on a number of relevant domestic issues. She and Hayworth share more common views. If it’s personal, so be it. If Sarah Palin is a moderate, then very well. Let’s get that out into the open, and stop presenting her as a conservative icon, because there are few left who would consider McCain as such. Some have suggested that she is just being loyal to the man who chose her as his running mate for the presidency. Ultimately, the argument that Sarah Palin supports McCain because of his politics is frail. They’re at odds all over the place. It’s not “hatred” to point this out. Deal with it.

Other than to say that, contrary to a few commenters at HA, I find such debates enjoyable and useful, and entirely consistent with truth, justice, and the American way – I’m refraining from and direct response for now.

Posted 29 March 2010 † CK MacLeod § Dextro § Republican Party § Sarah Palin § Tea Party ‡ Comments (18) ° Tagged: , ,  | Email This Post Email This Post  | Print This Post Print This Post

CK MacLeod  Sorry, Palin and Hayworth supporters, but you’re in denial about the McCain endorsement

We’ve had numerous threads at HotAir – headline and main page – on the Hayworth-McCain race and Palin’s endorsement of her former running mate. The latest item was Meghan McCain’s piece on “McCain-Palin – The Sequel.” In that piece, Ms. McCain describes the pairing “the best of both Republican worlds.” It struck me as one of the nicest things she’s said since the end of the campaign.

Some McCain-haters – and there’s really no better word than “hate” for the attitude of many HotAirians regarding McCain – think Palin’s made a “mistake.” Others who like and support Palin, but who remain hostile and suspicious toward McCain and what they believe he represents, believe she’s just “doing what she has to” in demonstrating loyalty to the man who “made her” a multi-millionaire and national political player, and are willing to give her “a mulligan.” Here’s one typical exchange:

I don’t know how many endorsements like these Palin can survive.

DFCtomm on March 29, 2010 at 1:29 PM

HondaV65 on March 29, 2010 at 1:30 PM

ONE. And only ONE.

Many such observers have persuaded themselves that Palin is trying to improve her political prospects and expand her power base. At some unspecified later date, they expect, she’ll be able to call in the chit. It squares with the view of your average Fox News All-Star always happy to attribute any conduct by any politician to cynicism.

What a load of, ahem, bullcrap! Continue Reading »

Posted 29 March 2010 † CK MacLeod § Dextro § Sarah Palin ‡ Comments (38) ° Tagged: , ,  | Email This Post Email This Post  | Print This Post Print This Post

adam k  Pre-existing Conditions

This phrase has been thrust upon us rather insistently lately, so I’ve started rolling it over in my mind a bit. It’s a very flexible term, isn’t it—on first glance, it sounds like some condition diagnosed in accord with consensus medical norms, and perhaps it does often, even usually, or always, mean this—but there’s no reason it has to stop there any more than “racism” has to stop at meaning explicitly abusing someone, or refusing them entrance into some shared space, because of their skin color. “Conditions” are by definition “pre-existing”—so, MS would obviously be a pre-existing condition militating against some insurance company taking on a new client; but so would the increased probability that a healthy 25 year old would get cancer, as calculated according to family history and, increasingly (no doubt), genetic analysis.

So, “pre-existing condition” can stand in for all the invidious distinctions we are now capable of making based on characteristics outside of anyone’s control. We can discover more faults, more dangers, greater risks than ever before, we can do more to correct faults, counter dangers, and anticipate risks than ever before; for this very reason, though, it becomes far more expensive to treat pre-existing conditions of any kind. In that case, pre-existing conditions can no longer be seen as the luck of the draw—if you’ve got a bum ticker, you might die a bit before your time, and so you could be careful and try to squeeze out a few more years or live it up in the time you have—but, rather, a basis for demands upon society and, insofar as those demands are not met, a source of felt injustice. Even more: to be just a little bit less metaphorical for a moment, medical science has advanced so rapidly in the past half-century and promises so much more that any social resources that are not directed towards hastening this progress appear to have been “stolen” from those who are suffering and dying daily—it is almost murder; perhaps for some it is. And, finally, to head back over the metaphorical/literal boundary, since scientific advance is fundamentally mysterious, it is easy to assume that any miracle is possible, and if the urgently desired miracles are not forthcoming, equally easy to assume some conspiracy of narrow interests has cornered and monopolized the sources of social intelligence for their own benefit—and this is true in areas well beyond medicine.

Continue Reading »

Posted 29 March 2010 † adam k § Politics ‡ Comments (23) °  | Email This Post Email This Post  | Print This Post Print This Post

CK MacLeod  Repeal, reform, and replace the narrative

Writing the day after ObamaCare’s passage in the House, Jonathan Tobin at the Contentions blog framed the event as he believes the Democrats see it:

[T]his bill’s purported goal of providing affordable health insurance to every American is seen by Obama and his backers as not only just but also inevitable, much the same way they think of the “New Deal” legislation passed by Franklin Roosevelt or Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society.” They are convinced that [...]ObamaCare will soon be seen not as a massive expansion of government power but as yet another chapter in America’s inexorable journey to social justice…

Tobin goes on to argue that the real job for conservatives must go beyond a critique of ObamaCare, to an “attack on the liberal narrative.”  In the process he employs a bit of rhetorical jiu-jitsu:

Rather than a progressive innovation, ObamaCare is a retrograde move that seeks to drag American politics and the economy back to the mistaken emphasis on government power of the mid-20th century. Like so much of the welfare economics and failed liberal policies of that era, ObamaCare has the potential to do far more harm than good.

This mode of analysis, which should be familiar to some readers here, defines our political moment as progressivism in self-eclipse, the moment when further progress along the path of leftwing statism requires retreat on every other, and when everything else that political progressivism originally stood for – cleaner politics, responsiveness to the popular will, efficient and up-to-date public administration, simple fairness – must be sought elsewhere.  It could be a moment of profound opportunity to re-shape American politics, but only if conservatives are prepared to seize it.

Continue Reading »

Posted 27 March 2010 † CK MacLeod § Health Care § Republican Party ‡ Comments (37) ° Tagged: , ,  | Email This Post Email This Post  | Print This Post Print This Post

CK MacLeod  light posting

…working on a new post metastatizing beyond my control… will try to cut it down and serve it up this evening… also working on a new location for the blog – will report developments soon… also got business to take care of… later!

Posted 26 March 2010 † CK MacLeod § Site Features ‡ Comments Off °  | Email This Post Email This Post  | Print This Post Print This Post
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