Word.

The Arizona shooting is a tragedy. But to link it with political talk is absurd. Despite long politically correct wait to judgement on the Ft. Hood shooter for fear of labeling him an Islamic Terrorist (when in FACT, that's exactly what he was), the media and the LOCAL SHERIFF!! were happy to label Jared Loughner a right-winged political extremist right out of the gate - with no evidence whatsoever. In this case, it becomes clearer everyday that Jared Loughner was NOT political at all, but rather just a plain ole nutbag. He wasn't incited by talk radio, or political commentary. He was crazy. Nevertheless, reporters still drop blame. Some still repeat the claim political division "wasn't the sole factor" in the shooting. No. No. It wasn't ANY factor.


From Ace of Spades - Political Blog. It's long, but accurate (and mildly edited):

Ahhh... Remember When The Left Thought Making Political Threats Was Pretty Darn Kewl?

Yes, I am old enough to remember those halcyon days, whatever halcyon means, I'm sure it means something good, when protesters could wave signs saying "KILL BUSH" and "I'M HERE TO KILL BUSH" and our media, so exquisitely sensitive towards any potential incitement, was altogether too distracted by the music of the wind playing in the flowers to notice.

But those were innocent days, when no one could ever get hurt or die, or at least no one of any particular political merit.

All kidding aside, I want nothing worse for Barack Obama than an unexpected retirement in early January 2013; and in fact I want no politician harmed by political violence. (Or anyone, for that matter.)

I was greatly upset by the Tucson shooting, and not just for the lives lost, but for the degradation of America. I don't want to live in that kind of tin-pot short-fuse banana non-Republic were people express their political opinions at pointblank-to-close range.

But the media let the left get away with murder -- or, more accurately, incitement to murder -- for eight long years and now they want to piously instruct us that we can't say socialist anymore?

Here's my rule, which is workable, because it's bright-line and nonpartisan: You cannot urge political violence, nor can you strongly imply that maybe some political violence would be a good thing.

That means all of these filth carrying "KILL BUSH" signs should have been arrested and tried, and the media should have pointed this out, because embarrassing a political movement is the only way to incite it to patrol its ranks for excesses.

But the media didn't, because they're in the tank for the left. Fine. That doesn't mean that we have to allow or accept such incitements now, from either side, but until the media confesses its own crime they do get to play referee or judge.

So urgings towards violence, and deliberately violent imagery, are out.

Here's what in: Socialist. It's allowed. I said so. The left says "You can't say that because it upsets people too much and that might provoke some into violence," and it's at this point I have to say, "Tough s**t. Life is chancy."

The most important political debate, had over the past 160 years, is about socialism, whether we go towards it or away from it, and it's absurd to posit we can no longer reference a worldwide 160-year-old political dispute because of worries that someone might get hurt.

Is the word an incitement? So it is. As they say, All ideas are incitements. That's the point of them. And you cannot sand down the edges of every idea into a safe, non-pokey rounded top and pad everyone in rubber suits. The word has too much value to suppress, for anyone's safety.

You know who agrees? The Democrats, the left, and the media, who threw around the left's version of "socialist" -- "fascist," "Nazi" -- all my life and never once seemed especially concerned that if someone took them seriously, that if someone really did think this or that person was a fascist or Nazi and therefore steering this country to fascism or Naziism, then that person might become animated enough to kill someone.

They toss out the word "murderer" like it's going out of style -- virtually everyone on the right is a "murderer," eventually. They never seem to consider that if someone takes them seriously, and believes actual murderers are setting this country's policies, that would require people to rise up violently against said murderers, wouldn't it?

Is that an incitement, then? Of course it is. The left's only defense is that no one takes them seriously, but that's not true. See the Discovery Channel Gunman, for example. Some people are so crazy and stupid they do take the left seriously.

They seem comfortable with the risks associated with this sort of strident political name-calling. I join them in that -- I am comfortable in this risk as well. It's a risk that has to be accepted.

Now, I don't like that the left constantly tosses out inciting words like "Nazi" and "fascist." I scold them for that, I buffoonize them for that. But I don't say they can't say those words, or that those words will lead to murder (even though they could!) Because I accept the idea of free speech enough to know that I have to accept the hateful rhetoric of the left.

As long as it's merely hateful, and merely tends towards incitement, and does not expressly, explicitly incite.

So that's the deal, left: Shut the F up and accept that "socialist" is a legitimate term to throw at you (because you are, in fact, socialist or at least socialist-curious) and stop whining about it just like we on the right do not whine about you using the word "fascist" to describe everything from Star Wars to over-baked chicken at Popeye's. You have your dirty words, we have ours. Deal with it already.

Here's what you also have to deal with-- martial metaphors. Like the kind Howie Kurtz scolds Sarah Palin about right before he notes she's "escalated her war with the press." After you, Alphonse. If the media can scrub all martial metaphors out of its usage for three straight months, I will then convince it even can be done; until then, I assume it can't. So if the media wants to make some point on this score -- lead by example.

It'll be tough. The day National Journal fretted about Palin's evil martial metaphors they had a dozen of them, and that was just in the headlines. But the media is so smart and educated 'n stuff I'm sure they can figure out how to do this, and then that will provide a good example for we rubes to follow.

And that's it. Yes, no inciting language. No inciting imagery. I agree 100%. I don't need to be convinced because I always was convinced.

Question for the media and Democrats: Were you always convinced? Or is this a revelation of more recent vintage?

[Picture of man holding sign, "Bush is the Disease. Death is the Cure."]

And if it is a revelation of recent vintage: Then who exactly are you, who discovered this was a problem just over two years ago, to lecture me, who's been talking about it for ten years?

And none of this is about incitement to violence. What it's about is incitement to political action, and the left doesn't like the words we're using because they're effective and therefore wants us to neuter our language and use less effective words.

Again: F Yourself.

On the point of political incitement, absolutely, I'm there, 100%.

On the point of attempting to mau-mau Michelle Bachman for using the sort-of-really-good line "I want you armed and dangerous with facts about climate change"? Give me a break. That's golden. You don't like it just because you don't like her. If any lefty came up with that line, you'd be applauding it. And you're just claiming that's "inciting" because, unfortunately, she hasn't really incited anything, except people to vote against you.

Enough of the damn lies and enough of the stupid Matrix of Loughnerian fantasy.

Point is, I do believe that incitement 1) is dangerous and 2) is of very low expressive value anyway because who the wants to read the 1000ndth comment by an emotionally-unstable jackass talking about how what wonders he can work with his mighty penis-substitute rifle?

So I'm a bear on this issue.

Is the media? The media now deigning to lecture me about this?

If there is a climate of hate -- let's stipulate for one second that there is, just for the purposes of this question -- what did the media do about this before January 2009? Or do they claim it only happened after Obama was inaugurated?

'Cuz Zombie's blog has lots of photos -- photos the media suppressed and would not run, for fear of embarrassing the left and jeopardizing their precious liberal Democrats' political fortunes -- that says they're liars if they make that claim.

Posted by: Ace at 03:57 PM

Learn something new every day

For my birthday, Emily and I went to Hyland Hills to learn how to snowboard. Never left the bunny slope, but it was fun.

Decision Points

I'm a fan a George Bush, no doubt. I finished his book, Decision Points, over the weekend. It's a very good read, and I would recommend it to those who are NOT fans. He clearly outlines 15 or 16 major decisions made during his presidency, and justifies why and how he made the decisions. You may disagree with the politics, but understanding the rationale will help define the man. Those that rely on the media/Hollywood to define him are sadly sold short.

Katie's Silent Night

Goodbye Friend

Sad news was delivered Saturday when I found that my fraternity brother and college suite-mate had late stage lung cancer and after showing improvement in November had taken a turn for the worst. By that evening, I received an email that he had passed away.

Shady Kanfi, a Canadian, was a lifelong Montreal Canadians fan. Together with me, as a Bruins fan, we had a fun rivalry. Shady was smart and quick witted. He entered Babson a year after I did, but was part of my graduating class, finishing in three years.

My junior year, we (and two others) traveled on Spring Break to California. All we had were plane tickets and a rent-a-car. We traveled between Los Angeles and San Diego (and a quick jaunt to Tijuana) staying at local chapters of our fraternity. We housed at UCLA, Cal State Long Beach and San Diego State University. It was a terrific trip. By senior year, Shady had enough credits to be considered a Senior and with four other fraternity brothers we secured one of the coveted on-campus suites. It was an excellent year.

After college, Shady went back to Canada, and I to New York. After a couple of years, his email changed, and without things such as Facebook and Blogs, most of us lost touch with him.

In 2005, I had a blog that gave updates from some of our college fraternity brothers. I made this post:

See kids, watching a lot of TV can be useful:

Although Shady has failed to provide me his own update, I feel I know quite a bit more about him now. My wife, who is addicted to home make0ver shows, was watching TLC's Trading Spaces and I the Red Sox game on the nearby computer. Finally, after listening to babble of which colors to pick and what fabric matches, I finally get a glimpse of the "contestants" or
"home-owners." I lean over to my wife, and ask, "what is that guy's name?"

"Doug?" she replies citing one of the hosts. "No, the guy standing next to him..."

"Shady."

"Holy s***. I know him."

So, needless to say, I watched the rest of the show.

Shady, at the time of the show's taping, had been married for about 1 1/2 years to a woman he met through a friend at a New Year's Eve party. They had, again at the time of the taping whenever the hell that was, recently bought their first house (5 weeks prior).

The little Cannuck looks about the same, but for some hair moving from his head to his face.

Check your local listings....

I received the following reply comment:

Frankly I think you're being a little harsh on Shady. I think it shows great consideration on his part to have gone through the trouble of getting on American TV in order to update his friends in the US about what he's been up to lately.

Given that Shady has missed watching the Bruins lose to their Northern neighbours for quite some time, it is only reasonable to expect that he might have been a little too upset to stay in touch using regular means.

By the way, I caught the show in question and found your friend from college and his wife to be quite witty and charming. And what a wonderful house they have! Surely they must be leading a charmed and wonderful life.

- A completely unrelated and anonymous person

With the emergence of Facebook, we were able to trade jabs about the Bruins and Canadians yet again.

He went silent of late, and I often wondered why. I got news Saturday during dinner that, Shady "was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer in May of this year. He initially responded amazing well to an experimental drug, but that only lasted a few months. Around late summer he began to feel worse, and his oncologist switched him to another medication. Shady wrote that he began to feel better in early November, but has now taken a very serious turn for the worse." Our friend, Dan, was on his way to his hospital bedside. However, Dan didn't make it there in time. "I'm sorry to say that Shady passed away shortly before we arrived in Montreal this evening."

Shady was a great person. I don't know anyone that wasn't taken by his wit and charm. He was no dummy. I mentioned he graduated Babson in 3 years. He went on to get a Masters in International Relations from John Hopkins. If that wasn't enough, he was in the middle of getting his Ph.D. from McGill University, which expected to complete in 2012. He was truly leading a "a charmed and wonderful life." Unfortunately, this terrible disease ended it far too quickly - 8 days prior to his 40th birthday. Shady leaves a wife and two children, including a daughter that was born only months ago. Very sad.

I'll miss you buddy. Rest in peace. Go Habs.

Snow

Although not sure it was classified as a blizzard, we had quite a snowy weekend. Minneapolis-St. Paul area received the most snow in a single December day since records began in the late 19th century. My guess is we got 15-16" between Friday night and Sunday morning. With the heavy winds, drifts were a big issue. Snow on our deck piled up such that it covered the lower parts of our dining room windows.

Basically, we barely left the neighborhood, and spent most of the time in the house, kids included. Fortunately, our two "events" this weekend were both neighbor parties.

Honking my horn

Wednesday Dec 8 Blog Post:"we got the Dolphins next, there's an easy division win." Guess what buddy, your Jets are 10th overall, Dolphins are 11th. On that same weighted basis, Dolphins are 3 spots ahead of you! Good luck on that one.

Miami 10, J-E-T-S 6

New prediction: Jets will be fighting for their playoff lives in week 17, a game against the lowly (but revitalized) Bills.

Imagine

Pats - Jets

I could not be happier about a single football game that did not have Roman numerals following it. I was so sick of the Jets pre-game talk. The Jets are a 6-6 team masquerading as 9-3. Including the results of this past week, Football Outsiders ranks the Jets at best the 10th in football, and on a weighted basis (giving more weight to the nearest games, and less to the earlier games) are 13th. Their Estimated Wins (a statistic that emphasizes consistency in the most important specific situations: red zone defense, first quarter offense, and performance in the second half when the score is close the projects a number of wins adjusted to a league-average schedule) estimates that the Jets should be 7-5. FO also ranks the Jets defense 7th (10th weighted), and most of that is based on their ability against the run. The are below average against the pass.

So, it was quite satisfying to watch this past Monday Night Football game. It was only made better watching this:



Best line to be eaten later, "we got the Dolphins next, there's an easy division win." Guess what buddy, your Jets are 10th overall, Dolphins are 11th. On that same weighted basis, Dolphins are 3 spots ahead of you! Good luck on that one.

So great

Ahead of the very interesting NE/NYJ matchup, this video shows just how great a coach Belichick is.



Love the exchange with Vinatieri at the end too.