If you aren’t following Iowahawk on Twitter, you’re missing a lot of funny stuff.
November 15, 2010
Iowahawk provides some suggested new slogans for the TSA
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QotD: “Stop crediting the Tories with scruples they show no sign of possessing”
Someday, historians will write about those Tory ministers who, under pressure, had the courage to do the wrong thing. Still, after so many such examples, it might occur to someone that these are their principles: not the ones they are presumed to have, based on past statements, but the ones they actually practice.
[. . .]
I suppose it’s possible these other Conservatives exist in theory, as a kind of Platonic ideal form. And so the principles commonly ascribed to them may also be said to exist, as abstractions. But if they never actually act on them, of what real-world significance are they? How is it meaningful to talk about them?
Perhaps there may once have been this great tension between Harper In Reality and the Harper Who May Exist in Theory, wrestling with each other over every great decision. Probably it was a struggle, jettisoning long-held convictions for short-term political gain — the first couple of times. But after the 50th or 60th time I can’t imagine he even notices. So we should stop pretending he does: stop crediting the Tories with scruples they show no outward sign of possessing.
It’s not as if this is anything new, after all. The Tories have been signalling their disdain for principled politics for—well, since their founding, or indeed before. The lesson the party’s leadership drew from the Reform-Alliance experience was not that these parties had been undisciplined or ill-led, but that they had been too radical, too honest, too principled. And the lesson they had absorbed from the Liberals’ success was the corollary. So: make no promises, if you can, or if you must make some, do not be bound by them, or indeed by anything else. And now we have two such parties.
Andrew Coyne, “Politics all the way down: Stop crediting the Tories with scruples they show no sign of possessing”, Maclean’s, 2010-11-15
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Art Carden calls for the abolition of the TSA
Has the TSA finally gone too far? Art Carden certainly thinks so:
Full Frontal Nudity Doesn’t Make Us Safer: Abolish the TSA
The Republicans control the House of Representatives and are bracing for a long battle over the President’s health care proposal. In the spirit of bipartisanship and sanity, I propose that the first thing on the chopping block should be an ineffective organization that wastes money, violates our rights, and encourages us to make decisions that imperil our safety. I’m talking about the Transportation Security Administration.
Bipartisan support should be immediate. For fiscal conservatives, it’s hard to come up with a more wasteful agency than the TSA. For privacy advocates, eliminating an organization that requires you to choose between a nude body scan or genital groping in order to board a plane should be a no-brainer.
But won’t that compromise safety? I doubt it. The airlines have enormous sums of money riding on passenger safety, and the notion that a government bureaucracy has better incentives to provide safe travels than airlines with billions of dollars worth of capital and goodwill on the line strains credibility.
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Vikings’ playoff hopes all but gone
Yesterday’s game against the Chicago Bears was a must-win . . . and they put in a terrible performance:
BRETT FAVRE: The battered quarterback had a depleted receiving corps to which he threw for a paltry 170 yards, with three interceptions and a fumble — giving Favre an eye-popping 21 turnovers this season.
SPECIAL TEAMS: Allowed dashing returner Devin Hester to break tackles and wreak havoc on the coverage units, producing returns of 68 and 42 yards. After converting nine consecutive field goals, Ryan Longwell missed for the first time this season, clanking a 39-yard attempt off the left upright in the second quarter that would have given Minnesota a six-point lead.
RUN DEFENSE: The once-vaunted unit that went 36 games without yielding 100 yards rushing has allowed four teams to crack the century mark, including Chicago, which ran up 130 yards on the ground.
Not appearing in this game were Sidney Rice and Bernard Berrian. Injured during the game was Percy Harvin, meaning the top three receivers were off the field during the last portion of the game.
Next week’s game against the Green Bay Packers may not matter, even if the Vikings can manage to win . . . they’ll need to win all of their remaining games to even hope for a wildcard spot.
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New on A&E: Psychics with Serious Mental Illnesses Hunting Hitler’s Ghost While Driving A Big Truck with Their Freakish Family
Another link from Chris Myrick: Bad move, A&E.
The A&E Channel has a new show coming up: Psychic Kids: Children of the Paranormal. Sounds awful already, doesn’t it? But it’s worse than you think: they’re looking for disturbed kids who think they’ve got magic powers, and then they’re flying in “professional psychics” to coach them in dealing with their awesome powers, i.e., indulge their delusions, get off on feeling superior to unhappy kids, and collect a paycheck for psychic child abuse.
They’re putting kids in the hands of a creepy skeevo like Chip Coffey, all for your entertainment.
This is quite possibly the most loathsome thing I’ve ever seen on TV, and my cable gives me access to the Trinity Broadcast Network, so that’s saying a lot.
Skepchicks are mobilizing the skeptic hordes. Call or write to A&E and let them know that their schlock has reached a new and despicable low.
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Russian “sleeper” agents apparently betrayed by “middle management”
If you remember the foofaraw about the ten Russian sleeper agents who were in the news earlier this year, Strategy Page says they were actually unmasked long before it became public knowledge:
According to Russian officials, the ten Russian spies arrested in the United States last June were betrayed by a Russian espionage official (identified only as “colonel Shcherbakov”) in the SVR (Russian CIA). The U.S. claimed they had been watching the ten sleepers for several years, which may indicate that Shcherbakov has revealed a lot more if he was on the American payroll all that time. Shcherbakov was in charge of the SVR sleeper cell operation. The Russians use military ranks in the police and intelligence services, and colonels are middle-management. There is political pressure to on the head of SVR to resign, indicating that the damage was greater than anyone wants to admit.
Last July, after Shcherbakov was safely in the U.S., American and Russian officials conducted a spy swap in Vienna, Austria. This was the largest such swap since the Cold War. Russia pardoned and freed four Russians, including two former intel officers who had revealed the identities of numerous Russian agents in the West. These two are believed to have more information and insights of value. The U.S. released the ten Russians who had, for the last decade, been trying to pass themselves off as Americans, and operate as “illegals” (spies without diplomatic cover and protection). As part of the deal, the ten Russians had to admit their guilt. The FBI said that they caught on to this bunch early on, and have been watching them for years, trying to obtain more information on how Russian espionage operate in the United States. The FBI finally arrested these ten when it became apparent that the Russians had detected that they were being watched. Or because colonel Shcherbakov believed his SVR bosses were on to him, or because the colonel believed it was time to retire to that secret condo in the United States. Russian government officials are indicating that SVR assassins have been sent to kill Shcherbakov.
Some have speculated that these agents were actually just a cover for “real” sleeper agents who were doing actual espionage work — it’s as viable an explanation as the SVR deliberately placing ineffective agents.
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