Patterico's Pontifications

6/10/2008

Vote for Xrlq — Because Barack Obama Sucks

Filed under: 2008 Election,Blogging Matters — Patterico @ 9:47 pm



Xrlq wants to go shoot guns or something. If you vote for him, maybe he can. So vote for him.

Also, if I link him on that post, it means he will link my post about how Barack Obama sucks, which will propel me higher in the Google rankings for the search term “Barack Obama sucks.”

Because he does. Suck.

Not Xrlq. Barack Obama. He sucks.

Tim Rutten Radicalizes Our Enemies With Lies

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:00 pm



Tim Rutten:

By any reasonable standard, the Guantanamo tribunals are a farce. By the government’s own admission, Mohammed and other high-level Al Qaeda detainees have been tortured.

If you didn’t know the source, you might think that the government had actually admitted torturing KSM and other detainees. But it’s Tim Rutten, and by now we know how to read Rutten. What he means is, the government has admitted certain practices (like waterboarding), and Rutten considers those practices torture, ergo the government has admitted torture.

That sounds like torture to me — Rutten torturing the English language.

Rutten claims to be concerned about how all this affects the views of “marginalized young men in fanatic-infested backwaters across the Islamic world.” Of course, by lying about what the government has admitted — and by Rutten’s own admission, he has lied about this* — Rutten is himself inflaming the sentiments of those fanatics.

If we are radicalizing Islamists throughout the world, you can place some of the blame squarely at the feet of people like Rutten, who exaggerate our complicity and give the enemy comfort in doing so.

*Well, Rutten hasn’t exactly admitted to lying. But he admits he said what he said, and I believe that what he said is a lie. Thus, according to Tim Rutten Logic, he admitted to lying.

Barack Obama Sucks

Filed under: 2008 Election,General — Patterico @ 6:00 pm



Barack Obama sucks.

Barack Obama sucks because he will appoint terrible judges.

Barack Obama sucks because he will make John Edwards the A.G., and Slow Joe Biden the Secretary of State.

Barack Obama sucks because he will seek to pass big-government programs.

Barack Obama sucks because he will cut and run in Iraq, risking civil war in that country.

Barack Obama sucks because he reneges on his promises.

Barack Obama sucks because he has surrounded himself with bad people.

Barack Obama sucks.

My goal is to make sure anyone who uses Google to confirm their belief that Barack Obama sucks, will find this post and join the choir.

Perdigao Recusal Motion Denied

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 4:59 pm



The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports:

A federal judge has denied alleged embezzler Jamie Perdigao’s request that U.S. Attorney Jim Letten’s office be recused from prosecuting his case because of alleged conflicts.

In a sensational motion filed in April, Perdigao — who is accused of stealing $30 million from the Adams and Reese law firm, where he was once a partner — claimed that federal prosecutors were uninterested in pursuing a series of juicy leads he provided them after his arrest. The reason, he said, was that some of the tips implicated members of Letten’s office.

In addition, Perdigao noted that his leads, if verified, could have tarnished or even overturned the verdict against former Gov. Edwin Edwards, who is serving a 10-year prison sentence. Letten’s office did not want to run that risk, Perdigao argued.

In a status conference held Friday, U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon, who had been weighing Perdigao’s request for an evidentiary hearing on his claims, ruled that no hearing was necessary. Fallon also denied the request to recuse Letten’s office at the status conference.

I guess those of us looking for some entertainment from the hearing will have to wait until Perdigao’s criminal trial, or further developments on his civil suit. That could take a while:

Perdigao’s trial on the criminal charges is scheduled to begin Dec. 1. His civil suit has not been scheduled for trial yet.

Bummer, dude.

L.A. Times Solves Issue of Why Traffic Sucks in Southern California, By Looking at Every Answer Except the Obvious One

Filed under: Dog Trainer,Immigration — Patterico @ 12:32 am



An L.A. Times article pretends to tell you why traffic sucks in Southern California:

Many factors conspire to produce Southern California’s traffic. The most consequential is the collective impact of millions of individual choices. In Reliford’s case, her loathing of the commute is outweighed by her love for her home in Rialto, with its big backyard where her two young boys can play safely.

Those choices play out in a region that sprawled long before the freeways were built. The pattern of development in Southern California as far back as the era of the Pacific Electric Railway’s Red Cars created a horizontal city, one in which people frequently settled far from where they worked.

But individual decision-making alone does not account for Southern California’s massive traffic congestion. Actions by government at the state and local level also bear a big share of the blame.

OK, let’s hear about the actions by government.

Two decisions stand out:

* State and local officials have not expanded the region’s highways and mass transit systems enough to keep up with population growth.

The population of the five-county Southern California region grew 22% from 1990 to 2006, and the total miles driven by motorists has increased about 42%. But the number of miles of highway in the region has increased by only 7.5%.

OK, never mind the second decision. It’s not relevant anyway.

Here’s what is relevant:

Gee. Why did Southern California’s population grow 22% by 1990 to 2006?

Huh?

And did any level of government have anything to do with it?

These questions, dear readers, I leave to you to answer.

They sure as hell aren’t answered by this article.

P.S. Here’s a hint.

Tom Shales Owes a Correction on Roman Polanski

Filed under: Crime,General — Patterico @ 12:13 am



Washington Post columnist Tom Shales:

Polanski, diminutive director of “Chinatown,” “Rosemary’s Baby” and other creepy classics, did indeed have sexual intercourse with Samantha Gailey, who was 13 at the time, back in 1977. He was never charged with rape but with “unlawful intercourse.”

Really?

Take a look at Count IV of Polanski’s indictment:

polanski-indictment.JPG

A contemporary BBC article confirms:

Polanski is facing four charges including rape, sodomy, child molestation and giving drugs to a minor.

He was accused of giving a 13-year-old girl several glasses of champagne and part of a Quaalude, and then raping her. Time Magazine explains: “the drug is often used by professional pornographers to tranquilize young subjects.”

I think Shales means Polanski entered a plea to unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor. But don’t try to tell us he was “never charged with rape.”

Well, this is a nice opportunity to become acquainted with another ombudsman for a major newspaper.

Thanks to Rob I.

DIGRESSION THAT IS NOT REALLY A DIGRESSION: Maybe Shales is just practicing the Orwellian revisionism of judges who bar the word “rape” at rape trials. Imagine being told that you have to describe your rape as mere sexual intercourse. It’s like the state telling you that you really wanted it after all.


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