[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.]

(The beast “Sully” from Monsters Inc.)

So last night Patterico told you that Andrew Sullivan was jumping ship from the Atlantic, and bringing his Daily Dish blog over to the Daily Beast.

My first thought was, what would Howard Kurtz think of the chief Trig Truther joining his site?  But a quick search through our own archives reminds us that Karl pointed out that at one time Kurtz pushed the Trig Truther theory himself.  But then later, via Patterico, he pretended that Sullivan and his nuttiness didn’t even exist.

And of course, the Daily Beast now owns Newsweek (which has to be one of the saddest lines ever written in journalistic history), which is reportedly exactly why Sullivan wanted to work for the Beast: because he is hoping for a platform for columns and essays.  So, it would be interesting to see what Sully said and felt about Newsweek.  And we find over at the Atlantic, he wrote:

But there has been no press scrutiny [of Palin’s icky girl parts]. In fact, there has been enormous pressure from the press not to investigate the story and to mock anyone who does so. No MSM interviewer of Palin has ever asked a single question about the bizarre stories that Palin has told about her political prop – not Oprah, not Couric, not Gibson, not anyone. Newsweek has reprinted minute details of Palin’s story as fact with no independent confirmation but Palin’s own words. No MSM newspaper has asked for or demanded easily available proof of the pregnancy and birth – except the Anchorage Daily News, after the election, which prompted Palin not to quietly offer proof to an editor keen to put the entire controversy to rest, but to explode in rage.

Well, now “he will become a Newsweek contributor,” I am sure he will have the opportunity to correct that.  And dig the photograph he attaches to that post:

Isn’t that the perfect metaphor for all of this?  Assuming the child is Trig, the child’s face disappears, figuratively erasing the child’s humanity, as Sullivan proceeds to use the child as a means to attack the mother.  It’s a window into a disturbed mind.  My gosh, what a wonderful addition to the Daily Beast/Newsweek family!

Of course this all leaves two more questions.  First, the PJ Tatler asks what will be the fate of Sully’s ghost bloggers?  And meanwhile American Power is looking for a statement from Sarah Palin’s uterus.

And of course I asked a much more basic question last June (warning: coarse language at the link).

Bluntly, no respectable publication should have any interest in him, no matter how many nutballs he counts as his readers.  And if you eliminated all the people who went to his site wondering what crazy #$&! he would say next, how many actual followers that respect him did he have?

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]

[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.]

Update: We have video, below the fold.

The last living World War I veteran from the United States has died:

Frank W. Buckles died early Sunday, sadly yet not unexpectedly at age 110, having achieved a singular feat of longevity that left him proud and a bit bemused.

In 1917 and 1918, close to 5 million Americans served in World War I, and Mr. Buckles, a cordial fellow of gentle humor, was the last known survivor. “I knew there’d be only one someday,” he said a few years back. “I didn’t think it would be me.”

His daughter, Susannah Buckles Flanagan, said Mr. Buckles, a widower, died of natural causes on his West Virginia farm, where she had been caring for him.

Buckles’ distant generation was the first to witness the awful toll of modern, mechanized warfare. As time thinned the ranks of those long-ago U.S. veterans, the nation hardly noticed them vanishing, until the roster dwindled to one ex-soldier, embraced in his final years by an appreciative public.

“Frank was a history book in and of himself, the kind you can’t get at the library,” said his friend, Muriel Sue Kerr. Having lived from the dawn of the 20th century, he seemed to never tire of sharing his and the country’s old memories – of the First World War, of roaring prosperity and epic depression, and of a second, far more cataclysmic global conflict, which he barely survived.

Read the whole thing.  In the march of time, we constantly lose one of our most precious resources: the men and women who were eyewitnesses to the events most us only read in schoolbooks.  Although the family rightfully mourns him just as a man, and we as a nation give him our thanks for his service, we also mourn that now there is no one alive today, who can tell us what it was like to fight for America in the so-called “War to End All Wars.”

Godspeed, Mr. Buckles.

Update: Via Hot Air, we get two moving videos.  One is a news feature on him:

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[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.]

Update: See below for a major update on the story.

In Colorado Springs, a tow truck driver named Alan Rose was trying to tow an SUV when something went horribly wrong:

Hundreds of people gathered together Thursday night to remember a man who was dragged to his death in Colorado Springs.

35-year-old Allen Rose was trying to tow an SUV from the Hill Park Apartments Wednesday when a woman jumped inside the car and drove off.

Rose’s leg got tangled up in a cable that broke away from his the tow truck as the SUV drove away.

The woman drove for more than a mile with Rose dragging behind her vehicle before he became disentangled….

“This man, he served in Iraq twice for us. This man was a good citizen. This is not right,” says Shelton.

Police have spoken with the woman who dragged Rose, but they have not yet arrested her.

People at the vigil said she is a juvenile.

A memorial fund has been set up for Rose’s wife and two children at any Key Bank.

This recalls the dragging murder of James Byrd, although obviously there are two significant differences.  First, so far there is no suggestion of a racial issue, here, while it was exceedingly obvious that Bryd was killed because he was black.  Second, it’s not 100% clear it was intentional.  In the video one man says the person was screaming, but I am not sure that was anything but speculation.  A stupid, clueless teenager, with the music turned way up…  is it possible to do this entirely by accident?  It’s possible, but I am not sure how plausible that is.

But it seems that if at any point she was aware she was dragging him, it would have to be first degree murder.  Initially catching the man’s leg as she drove was almost certainly an accident, but if she became aware he was back there at any point, then from that moment onward, she was intentionally dragging him.  In other words, it started as an accident, but if she knew it was happening, it continued intentionally.  And contrary to what a thousand courtroom dramas have told you, the element of premeditation doesn’t require some elaborate plan far in advance (although prosecutors are always happy to be able to have that).  In most jurisdictions, it just requires the slightest second to consider what you are doing.  If the police decide not to charge her, then, I think this driver’s family deserves to hear an explanation as to why.

Anyone who knows me knows I have a very real hate-hate relationship with the towing companies.  Having a company tow your car—illegally—on the night before your wedding will do that to you.  I believe, frankly, that the arrangement most communities have with towing companies are a violation of the Due Process Clause.  They are empowered by the state to commit legalized theft—that is to deprive you of your property without the slightest due process.  And of course every time they take a car—legally or not—they can hold it until you pay a fine, and then you are forced to go to court and try to get the difference back.  Very often the money you lose just by the act of going to court—in terms of missed work—exceeds any potential reimbursement, creating a powerful incentive for ordinary people not to fight it.  Thus this system actually gives an incentive to violate of your rights.  Of course the police have an incentive to give you more tickets, but at least that is counter-balanced by the fact that the police department ultimately answers to the people.  Towing companies answer only to state regulators, which clearly doesn’t provide much of an incentive for good behavior.

But none of that ever justifies just plain violence, let alone first degree murder.  I am sincerely sad for his family and if you are inclined, you might consider donating to that memorial fund mentioned in the article.

Update: Thanks to SarahW who gives us this link to a more timely discussion of the story. Apparently we learn the name of the driver, Detra Farries. She is thirty two years old, thus not a juvenile as previously believed and she maintains it was all an accident. She has also been arrested and charged with manslaughter.

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]