Right Wing Nut House

I thought it would be appropriate to republish my “Liveblogging Gettysburg” series that not only was the most fun I ever had writing, but is also some of the most viewed posts on this site via search engines.

The genesis of the idea occurred to me while reading about Walter Cronkite’s  fabulous series “You Are There,” broadcast by CBS in the 1950’s and rebroadcast on Saturday mornings in the early 1970’s. Every week, CBS reporters would visit an historical event and cover it as if it were a modern news story. It was very entertaining to see CBS news reporters dressed in modern clothing interviewing George Washington or General Lee.

The series also featured various key events in American and World history, portrayed in dramatic recreations. Additionally, CBS News reporters, in modern-day suits, would report on the action and interview the protagonists of each of the historical episodes. Each episode would begin with the characters setting the scene. Cronkite, from his anchor desk in New York, would give a few words on what was about to happen. An announcer would then give the date and the event, followed by a loud and boldly spoken “You Are There!”

Cronkite would then return to describe the event and its characters more in detail, before shifting the attention to the event itself, saying, “All things are as they were then, except… You Are There.”

At the end of the program, after Cronkite summarizes what happened in the preceding event, he reminded viewers, “What sort of day was it? A day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times… and you were there.”

I thought to myself, why not update the concept to include the internet? From there, it was fairly easy to invent sources, and utilize the telegraph to report on the battle.

Today, I am republishing posts that cover the battle on July 1 and 2. Tomorrow, I’ll republish July 3 and the Epilogue I wrote in 2005.

I hope you enjoy it.

There is a Texas woman who won multi-million dollar scratch off lottery tickets in her state 4 times in a little more than a decade.

First, she won $5.4 million, then a decade later, she won $2million, then two years later $3million and in the summer of 2010, she hit a $10million jackpot.

It turns out she was a Stanford University professor specializing in statistics and may have been able to figure out how to game the system, although Texas lottery officials discount that idea.

But the odds of her winning 4 scratch off tickets of those amounts are “one in eighteen septillion and luck like this could only come once every quadrillion years.”

I bring this up because last night, Sue bought a scratch off ticket at our local grocery store and won $5,000.

This is extraordinary in and of itself. The odds of winning $5,000 are one in 30,000.

But 5 grand is chump change to Sue. In 2004, after we had both lost our jobs and I had just started blogging in September, November 12 proved to be a lucky day indeed:

The other day, significant Otherhawk and I went to the store to pick up a few essentials; Oscar Mayer Bologna, Velveeta cheese, Hellman’s REAL mayonnaise, and Rosen’s Jewish Rye…all of which no self-respecting man in western civilization can live without.

On the way out the door, Otherhawk did something she NEVER does; she bought two instant scratch-off lottery tickets. We sat in the car scratching them. Mine was a bust, no winners. But Otherhawk matched one number on the card.

We were expecting no more than a $5 or $10 winner. So, imagine our surprise when she scratched off the space where the prize amount was revealed:

THE PRIZE AMOUNT WAS $100,000!!!

That’s right…$100,000. We. Just. Couldn’t. Believe. It. In fact, it still hasn’t sunk in. The odds of winning the grand prize were 1:672,544. Which just goes to show you…

“THE FORCE WILL ALWAYS BE WITH YOU” (Obi Wan Kenobi)

We still only buy scratch tickets once a month or so, which makes this serendipitous event last night a truly remarkable occurrence.

For some, it might prove the existence of an all powerful and loving God. To others, it validates chaos theory where random atoms spinning around the universe, colliding willy nilly with other atoms, makes the random seem foreordained.

I was lucky when I found my Zsu-Zsu at age 50. And today, I have another reason to thank my lucky stars we’re together.

On September 23, 2004, I opened an account on the blog creating site Blogger and wrote my first post for a site I named “Right Wing Nuthouse.” I called it that not because I was a right wing nut but as a tongue in cheek riposte to left wing critics I had done battle with online. I used to be a prolific commenter on blogs both right and left and thought that a little wry humor at the expense of liberals was perfectly in keeping with the tone I wanted to set for the blog.

It was a silly little post, that first one. It was about the big story at the time — the blogs vs. Dan Rather. Now, more than 3,700 posts later, I celebrate the 8th anniversary of RWNH with mixed feelings.

Originally, I thought that the blog would help me get noticed and promote my writing which would, in turn, allow me to make a living as a writer. In this, the blog has helped exceed my wildest expectations. While not strictly a writer, today I am writing for two websites as well as editing content for both. It’s been a strange journey from nameless blogger to (a still relatively nameless) successful writer. I harbor no illusions about my notoriety and whatever fame I’ve achieved has been as a conservative heretic rather than the wise old conservative sage I was hoping to be.

No matter. The right wing (I refuse to refer to most of them as “conservative”) is oblivious to their own heresy and have embraced an ideology that is rigid, anti-intellectual, anti-science, and self-destructive. It is an incoherent riot of conceits that is proudly bigoted, illogical, and bereft of new ideas. In fact, it is an unthinking, emotive ideology terrified of change, locked in a worldview that displays far more of the past than any vision for the future.

But I am the apostate, so go figure.

But while this blog has not given me exactly what I wanted as a public outlet for my writing, the returns on using my blog as a means to explore the inner workings of my mind have been extraordinary. I’m sure that sounds grandiose and a little inflated, but it’s true. One of my father’s favorite quotes was from Francis Bacon: “Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.” Starting a blog (or as it used to be referred to, a “journal”) radically sharpened my thinking. I was forced to confront the shallowness of much of my ideology and justify the basic intellectual premises I had relied on for many years. I found that what I had believed to have been rock solid assumptions undergirding my ideology dissipated in the fire of real inquiry — which included the unheard of notion that reading intelligent writing from both sides opened entirely new vistas and challenged my thinking on a wide variety of issues.

You can’t do this by reading right wing blogs. Julian Sanchez’s writing on this subject influenced me greatly:

One of the more striking features of the contemporary conservative movement is the extent to which it has been moving toward epistemic closure. Reality is defined by a multimedia array of interconnected and cross promoting conservative blogs, radio programs, magazines, and of course, Fox News. Whatever conflicts with that reality can be dismissed out of hand because it comes from the liberal media, and is therefore ipso facto not to be trusted. (How do you know they’re liberal? Well, they disagree with the conservative media!)

This epistemic closure can be a source of solidarity and energy, but it also renders the conservative media ecosystem fragile. Think of the complete panic China’s rulers feel about any breaks in their Internet firewall: The more successfully external sources of information have been excluded to date, the more unpredictable the effects of a breach become. Internal criticism is then especially problematic, because it threatens the hermetic seal. It’s not just that any particular criticism might have to be taken seriously coming from a fellow conservative. Rather, it’s that anything that breaks down the tacit equivalence between “critic of conservatives and “wicked liberal smear artist” undermines the effectiveness of the entire information filter. If disagreement is not in itself evidence of malign intent or moral degeneracy, people start feeling an obligation to engage it sincerely—maybe even when it comes from the New York Times. And there is nothing more potentially fatal to the momentum of an insurgency fueled by anger than a conversation.

The level of vitriol leveled against Sanchez for this penetrating observation was remarkable. And while I had already broken with most right wingers by criticizing what I call “cotton candy conservatives” like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and especially Glenn Beck, I suddenly realized, after reading the series of essays Sanchez published on epistemic closure, that I no longer marched in lock step. I was a different kind of conservative — or I was a real conservative and the rest were just right wing nuts. I haven’t quite decided which is true yet. Perhaps a little of both.

This site has allowed me to explore what some philosophers refer to as “the examined life” — a look inward at one’s most closely held and cherished assumptions, taking them out to hold up to the light of day, and then justifying their place as morally and philosophically true.

As I’ve said many times, I am no intellectual. And I have not been as rigorous as I should have been in my explorations. But I was struck again and again how I was forced to alter some of my beliefs — sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically — because I had opened my mind to alternative viewpoints. Those who view the world through a black and white prism are missing a lot. It may be advantageous politically to maintain a rigid ideological worldview that doesn’t stray far from the thinking of the tribe. But it was never enough for me, which I suppose has been my undoing.

If “Reading maketh a full man” in the sense that it helps one round out their thinking and give one a complete picture, then I have been well served by my curiosity. And if “writing maketh an exact man,” my curiosity has been mostly satisfied by trying to live an examined life.

I see now I would be a much different man if I hadn’t started this blog. Whatever muse was sitting on my shoulder urging me onward, I will always be grateful.

Since it’s Sunday, how about a little non-political distraction? Besides, I love cats and any opportunity that presents itself where I can tweak dog owners a bit is welcome.

In an article by a young intern at The New Republic, Perry Stein writes about the fact that posting cat pictures or writing about cats will bring more readers and links than writing about dogs. But why is that?

But the reason that cats have catapulted to cyber-fame isn’t purely biological: There are social factors at play as well. Steve Dale, a cat behavior consultant and pet journalist, told me that cat aficionados have been particularly drawn to the Internet because they lack other public safety valves where they can express their affection. “In the world of cats, there is no dog park,” Dale says. “For cat owners, the dog park is the Internet.”

Indeed, the Internet isn’t only a high-volume marketplace of cat memes-it’s also home to very intense communities of cat owners, who gather to share stories and seek answer about their pets. Mieshelle Nagelschneider, author of Random House’s forthcoming book Cat Whisperer, said that cat owners, have taken to the Internet as a means to actively, and collectively, reverse the stigma attached to them: Cat owners have long felt that they don’t get the respect of their counterparts who have dogs, even though there are more domesticated felines (a total of 86 million, according to the Humane Society) than canines. “I think the web has helped emerge this undiscovered beachfront property, that is cat owners,” Nagelschneider says.

There may be more deep-seated psychological responses at play as well. Cats’ famously reserved and withholding personalities naturally seduce us into paying closer attention to them. And unlike humans and dogs, cats are not only natural predators-they are also prey, a reason why cats often appear reserved and stealthy. Cats’ inherent vulnerability, Orvell says, naturally solicits our sympathy, and even puts us in touch with our own mortality. “There’s a complex set of reactions to cats, and the videos bring that into play,” Orvell said.

Don’t get me wrong. I love dogs. They are loyal, loving, smart, and wonderful companions whether you live alone or in a family setting.

Cats are otherworldly. Ultimately, I think that in the back of most cat lovers’ minds is the idea that their pet is an alien species, visiting earth for a while in order to capture and captivate us with their strange and wonderful antics. Their intensity, their grace and agility, their ability to shamelessly manipulate us — so unlike dogs, unlike any other animal on earth.

In Theodore H. White’s autobiography “America in Search of Itself,” the author relates his experience in the 1950’s when he worked for the old Collier’s magazine and was asked by management to investigate why the magazine was bleeding readership and going bankrupt.

White examined statistics that didn’t tell him what he was to find out later; that television was replacing the mass market magazines like Colliers,  Saturday Evening Post, Harper’s, and other national news/feature publications that reined for 75 years as venues where advertisers could sell their wares to a national audience. But White found something I think is fascinating; if Colliers ran a cover that featured a cat, newstand sales soared by more than a million. If they featured a dog or puppy, sales dropped. Probably something akin to that phenomenon is at work on the internet.

Someone once asked me what cats are thinking about when they look you straight in the eye and stare. “Lunch” I answered. The Geico commercial about the couple who took in a black panther rather than spend the money on a home security system is revealing in this respect. The panther sits atop the dresser eying the couple lying wide awake in bed, terrified. His stare is both frightening and mesmerizing. Is part of that the fact that for 3 million years, hominids were one of the major food sources of the ancestors of cats? Are our brains hard wired to fear and worship the beasts?

In the end, cats are what they are and many of us - about 86 million - try not to think why.

Besides, I’d like to see a dog look as relaxed and unconcerned as my Lucky.

Andrew Breitbart, dead suddenly at the age of 43, was not my cup of tea. He was too strident, too much the serial exaggerator, and was far too emotional to argue logically or in a reasoned manner.

And yet, I wrote this at American Thinker this morning:

Ed Morrissey writes at Hot Air that Andrew Breitbart was “our Merry Prankster”:

He was willing to take risks and look foolish in order to make a point or win an argument, with more courage than most would muster. No one who saw it will ever forget how he seized the podium at Anthony Weiner’s press conference and demanded vindication from media outlets who had been disparaging him and defending Weiner when the former Congressman got caught literally with his pants down. Few men have had the kind of impact Andrew did in such a short time, and he leaves behind a media empire that is still gaining strength.

Breitbart had a zest for political combat. He reveled in being a polarizing figure. He had a genius for getting the goat of the opposition and never apologized for his swashbuckling style of journalism.

In the ancient world, opposing kings preparing for war would send out their champions to engage in single combat, sometimes to decide the outcome of the conflict, more often to indicate which side God was on. Andrew Breitbart was a conservative champion. But instead of riding out to meet a single warrior, he gladly sallied forth - sometimes alone - to combat the entire left. Along the way, he picked up many allies - and made many enemies. Win or lose, it seemed that most of the time, God was indeed on his side.

But if “A man’s greatness can be measured by his enemies,” so, too can it be judged by his friends. Don’t listen to the prattling left today. Simply remember a man, made for his time, unique in his abilities, who left us for a far, far better place.

Technically speaking, Mr. Breitbart was not a “journalist” in what we might think of as the “traditional” sense. That’s fine. The entire point of Mr. Breitbart’s existence was to destroy “traditional” journalism, rightly seeing much of it as biased, shallow, manipulative, and elitist. Like the milieu in which he chose to operate — the internet — Breitbart’s websites were hit or miss operations. He could be as manipulative of images and copy as any mainstream journalist (The NAACP video was discretely edited to make the DoA employee look like a racist when in fact, her remarks were taken wildly — and deceitfully — out of context.)

But these tactics had been used by the mainstream media against the right for decades. And this poses the question of just what kind of journalist Breitbart was?

In the grand tradition of Tom Paine, Philip Freneau, Horace Greely, Hunter Thompson, and Gore Vidal, Breitbart was a master polemicist. His goal was not so much to inform, as it was to chastise the wicked. His advocacy for conservatives and conservative causes was carried out with a zestfulness and razor sharp humor that is often lacking on the right. In an age when most activists from both sides are dour-faced, bitter partisans, Breitbart brought a smile with his snarl. He endeared himself to many on the right for his unflinching, giving-as-good-as-he-got attitude toward the opposition. In short, he gave movement conservatives heart to persevere in the face of withering and usually unfair criticism from their adversaries.

There was nothing gentle about Breitbart in the public arena. He saw politics as a street fight where there were few rules and just about everything and everyone was fair game. Mudslinging, innuendo, character assassination, and exaggerated controversies were his stock in trade — just as it is for most of the left. While many of us bemoan the loss of civility and comity in politics and government, Breitbart didn’t care. If this is the way the game was to be played, to hell with trying to change it, he would go them one better. The difference between Breitbart and his enemies is that Andrew never made any pretense that he was playing by the rules, or seeking accommodation, or even trying to persuade. His opponents piously, and hypocritically criticized him for using exactly the same tactics that they themselves employed with as much relish as Breitbart enjoyed.

He lived his life and plied his trade without apologies - despite there being times when one should have been forthcoming. That, too, was part of the game. There weren’t any apologies coming from his opponents when he got something right or broke an important story that liberals would largely ignore. By that standard, Breitbart didn’t need to feel sorry or express regret. If the left was going to play the game by their own set of rules, Andrew would enthusiastically accept that challenge — and beat them anyway.

Breitbart’s legacy will be a more democratized political conversation. This is not a perfect good. Few things are. But it’s a damn sight better than what the media moguls, the establishmentarian pundits, and the elitist snobs created and zealously maintained for decades; a clubbish, narrow-minded, and out of touch press that deliberately suppressed viewpoints and personalities that failed to meet its means-test for permissible dialogue. The riot of voices and opinions unleashed by Breitbart on his 5 websites — and currently being eagerly copied by others — have blasted the ancien regime and changed the media forever.

For one so young to have accomplished so much in so short a time is a rare and wonderful thing, indeed.

The following is completely anecdotal, which means it is useless as intelligent analysis. I make no claim to understanding the theory or practice of figuring the inflation rate any more than I can “understand” the Holy Trinity or Quantum Mechanics.

But something is horribly wrong with the “official” inflation numbers. They are meaningless to anyone who has to live in the real world and is watching in horror as food, fuel, and the cost of other goods we buy regularly go through the roof.

I used to think it was just us, that we were overspending on food and not being economical with the car. I don’t think that anymore. Our food bill has increased 20% in less than 6 months  and we have watched gas prices make an uneven climb toward the $4 a gallon mark.

OK - everyone can see the correlation there. Trucks bring food to the stores and if gas increases substantially, the cost of food will increase as well. Since gas has gone up 25 cents per gallon over the last 6 months, it stands to reason that food will have had a corresponding increase - or something close to it.

But the increase has been very uneven. Some processed foods have remained nearly the same while others have shot up. Fresh fruit and veggies are through the roof. Bread has gone up nearly 40%. The price of fresh meat has also taken off while even off-brand canned goods have increased substantially.

Having worked in a grocery store (customer service manager), I know that there is an art and science to pricing stock. The marketing people will hold the line on some popular items while increasing the cost of others based on arcane formulas and research into customer buying habits.  But the proof is in our monthly food bill.

I started to keep very careful track of what we were spending on food every month, largely because I believed we were buying a bunch of stuff we didn’t need and could do without. Naturally, Sue took umbrage at this. She is proud of her skills as a shopper, visiting three stores every time she went for the month’s major grocery purchases in order to get the best possible price on fresh fruit and veggies, meat, deli, and canned goods. For the last 5 months we have kept every receipt - even if it was just to the corner store to get some milk or deli.

The results floored me.

Comparing the same items month to month was an eye opener. Ground round  has increased 35%. Our Alfredo sauce went up 40%. Seasonal fluctuations can account for the rise in fresh fruit and veggies. But an increase of 110% for lettuce?

Instead of spending $500 a month on food, we are spending about $625 - a 20% increase. That’s can’t be all”volatility.” Along with the increases in gas and fuel costs, the cost of living at my house is rising far faster than any “official” rate.

I am not one to believe in some kind of Obama conspiracy. The BLS wouldn’t be able to get away with fudging the numbers The unemployment rate is also a fantasy number but not because of any deliberate attempt to fiddle with the numbers either. Both indices are calculated based on criteria that is out in the open for all to see.

The problems as I see it are twofold: What goes into the”market basket” used to figure inflation, and how the unemployment figures are reported in the press.

Basically, the things that really impact our personal cost of living are devalued in the market basket used today while other stuff that we might buy occasionally are seemingly given more weight. The reason isn’t to “hide” the true cost of living but because of the price “volatility” of certain items that would skew the CPI when measured month to month and year to year.

The reported unemployment rate is trickier. Much of the actual rate compared to the official rate is buried in a blizzard of data that would include part time workers, workers too discouraged to look for work, and those who have dropped out of the workforce entirely. But the business press is lousy in this country and they do an awful job - with some exceptions - of putting all those numbers together in order to give us an accurate picture of how good/bad things are in the job market. You are much better off reading econ blogs who, if you can get through their explanations without your eyes glazing over, do a better job of giving a “big picture” look at what the job market is doing.

So the CPI is not used to inform us about our personal financial situation, but to guide the Fed and politicians in formulating policies. A fat lot of good that does the average consumer who is watching helplessly as he becomes poorer by the month. The official inflation rate in January was just 2.9%. From January 2011 to January 2012, the yearly rate was also 2.9%.

Everyone I’ve talked to is mad about prices and thinks those numbers are a crock. They have the exact same reaction I’ve had to the official rate of inflation - like, “Who are you trying to kid?” Most see the hand of politics in these numbers but that just isn’t credible. It’s too easy to check the BLS’s math to see if they are being ordered to give fictitious numbers.

The purchasing power of the average American is seriously eroding and no one is doing anything about it because the “official” numbers are telling us that all is well - no reason to panic. Food, gas, and fuel to heat our homes are all going up far faster than that government inflation number. And now, even the cost of renting our homes or apartments is beginning to rise. Those 4 “market basket” items represent the bulk of our monthly expenditures.

Some smart politician running for president is going to start articulating what the vast majority of us are experiencing on the inflation front. The one who does  will probably end up winning in November.

But is it any wonder that most people you talk to these days thinks the CPI is a load of crap?

I had high hopes for the OWS movement when it started. I thought they would actually try to incorporate other points of view and develop a true grass roots reform movement to address the shrinking middle class - which is really what “inequality” should be about.

Instead, OWS has turned into just another lefty pressure group - albeit, a more dangerous one. While there is no George Soros sitting in his office pulling strings and directing the movement, there appears to be a common thread beginning to run through these demonstrations that is extremely troubling; they have been co-opted by radicals who seek to overthrow the existing order. What began as a left leaning critique of Wall Street and the big banks, has morphed into a systemic attack on American values and our character as a nation.

This, I cannot abide. And I really let them have it in this piece I wrote for FPM this morning on the Oakland riots:

The Oakland riot is proof positive that whatever claim to innocence and idealism the movement purported in the early days of occupations around the country has been lost to the gimlet-eyed revolutionary left, now openly seeking violent confrontation with authorities using the bodies of the naive and foolish who still believe that OWS is a protest against income inequality and corporatism. Cadres of organized leftists came prepared to the Oakland protest with homemade gas masks and shields — a clear indication that they fully expected to provoke a police response. Innocent protesters do not come armed with “bottles, metal pipe, rocks, spray cans, improvised explosive devices and burning flares.” The transformation of the occupy movement from protest to “direct action” — the preferred tactic of the European Communist Left for generations — is nearly complete. There can be no sniveling denials from OWS apologists any more: The driving force behind the OWS movement — the goal of those who control the streets — is revolution and the overthrow of America’s capitalist system.

The mob action in Oakland occurred after authorities refused to allow the OWS demonstrators to make the Kaiser Convention Center their headquarters. Given the cavalier and negligent attitude toward health, safety, and sanitation at OWS sites around the country, it would seem logical that the authorities felt they had little choice but to deny the OWS use of any public venue that could degenerate into a cesspool of disease and crime.

The protesters refused to heed calls by police to back off and began to tear down barricades, destroy construction equipment and fencing, while refusing to disperse. Several hundred protesters then marched to the Oakland Museum of California where there were more arrests as the police tried to protect the priceless artifacts from potential vandalism.

Given what happened next, they were right to do so.

The mob moved on to City Hall where the protesters say they found a door ajar — which sounds fantastical — and police say the demonstrators broke in. A video purportedly shows an OWS demonstrator using a crowbar to pry the door open.

There is no argument about what happened when the protesters got inside the building.

A more than century-old architectural model of City Hall was damaged in its display case, electrical wires were cut, soda machines thrown to the floor, graffiti was sprayed on the walls, other display cases were smashed, windows were broken — a demonstration of lawlessness and lack of respect for property that even has some OWS leaders around the country saying it probably wasn’t a good idea.

Other OWS sympathizers took to the streets in “solidarity” with those arrested during the Oakland riot. CNN reports:

The mass arrests, described by police as the largest in city history, appear to have injected new life into the Occupy movement as protesters in a number of American and European cities took to the streets Sunday to express their solidarity with the Occupy Oakland group.

Marching in solidarity with rioters who took part in what one Oakland official referred to as “domestic terrorism,” is a curious way to demonstrate one’s peaceful intentions.

Now comes the fun part; the GOP will try to tie Obama and the Democrats to the OWS movement. What makes this so delicious is that there is going to be a probable riot in Chicago during the G-8 Summit in April. Adbusters, the radical consumerists who got the ball rolling with OWS, are calling on 50,000 demonstrators to descend on Chicago in April and, in their words:

And if they don’t listen … if they ignore us and put our demands on the back burner like they’ve done so many times before … then, with Gandhian ferocity, we’ll flashmob the streets, shut down stock exchanges, campuses, corporate headquarters and cities across the globe … we’ll make the price of doing business as usual too much to bear [ellipses in original].

A lot of bombast to be sure. But they include a call to imitate the “Chicago 8″ - the radicals charged with inciting a riot during the 1968 Democratic convention. Not very subtle, huh? This is a movement now that needs violence in order to get attention. And Obama, who has never really embraced the movement but has made supportive noises,  has adopted the rhetoric of OWS in order to skewer the GOP. The GOP should be all over him and his fellow Democrats when the crap hits the fan in Chicago and the tear gas is as thick as a morning fog over Lake Michigan.

I would guess that most of those who march or identify strongly with the OWS movement are peaceful Americans seeking reform. They will be cruelly used by those who are experienced at using the naive and innocent as cannon fodder for their revolutionary goals. This is not a reform movement anymore. It is an attempt to upend and overturn American society to make it something alien and unrecognizable from what we are today.

The poor, confused, addle-brained numbskull:

Frank La Rue, who serves as the U.N. “special rapporteur” for the protection of free expression, told HuffPost in an interview that the crackdowns against Occupy protesters appear to be violating their human and constitutional rights.

“I believe in city ordinances and I believe in maintaining urban order,” he said Thursday. “But on the other hand I also believe that the state — in this case the federal state — has an obligation to protect and promote human rights.”

“If I were going to pit a city ordinance against human rights, I would always take human rights,” he continued.

La Rue, a longtime Guatemalan human rights activist who has held his U.N. post for three years, said it’s clear to him that the protesters have a right to occupy public spaces “as long as that doesn’t severely affect the rights of others.”

In moments of crisis, governments often default to a forceful response instead of a dialogue, he said — but that’s a mistake.

“Citizens have the right to dissent with the authorities, and there’s no need to use public force to silence that dissension,” he said.

How does this jamoke define “severely affect the rights of others?” Rapes, assaults, unsanitary conditions that could lead to an outbreak of contagious disease, cities being forced to use precious police resources to patrol lawless encampments while allowing other neighborhoods to suffer with increased crime –

I’d say that’s a great, big “yes.”

“I believe in city ordinances and I believe in maintaining urban order…” Perhaps he should also believe in the US Constitution which prohibits federal authorities from intruding in what by any stretch of the imagination is a wholly local matter. Talk about jackboots in the streets - just think what this brainless twit would be saying if the National Guard were “protecting” the rights of the protesters? He’s probably be trying to get the Securty Council to enforce our “Responsibility to Protect.”

And how about this for a false analogy from another mindless observer, Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, co-chair of a National Lawyers Guild committee, who echoes the beliefs of many OWS supporters:

Using the same lens placed on the Occupy movement to look at, say, the protest in Egypt, Verheyden-Hilliard said, observers would have focused on such issues as “Did the people in Tahrir Square have a permit?”

To compare the undemocratic, dictatorial, oppressive Mubarak regime with American democracy is beyond belief. The Tahrir Square protestors- tens of thousands of them compared to the paltry few hundred who turned out for the OWS occuping - had no democratic alternative to permits. The OWS protestors have gone to court - a separate but equal branch of government - to plead their case. The fact that the courts sided with the reasonable requests of city officials that their central cities not be turned into crime and rat infested fetid swamps of human waste, garbage, filthy and lice ridden protestors should be a sign to any objective observer that “human rights” of the demonstrators were infringing on the rights of other residents in the city - to the severe detriment of public health and public order.

Besides, what exactly are these cities - the overwhelming majority of them run by politicians who openly sympathize with the protestors and their stated goals - doing to accomodate the demonstrators? They are saying they can come back during the day and protest to their heart’s content, fully exercising their constitutional right of free speech. The only restriction is that they can’t camp out and create chaotic and unsanitary conditions under which the city must expend enormous and scarce resources to accomodate them.

Did the protestors in Tahrir Square get that kind of welcoming alternative? Did the Tahrir Square protestors have dozens of police patrolling the periphery of their encampment to guard against attacks on women, on property, and prevent other crimes? Did Cairo city officials praise the protestors and give city employees time off to attend their rallies? Did the Tahrir Square protestors get free porto-johns, free hook ups to the electrical grid, free gourmet food, free wifi, and other amenities that other groups who might wish to protest - the Tea Party for instance - would have to pay for? It is certainly a novel idea that cities should be required to spend millions of dollars on protestors to ensure their comfort and facilitiate their agenda.

The notion that there is any commonality between the OWS protestors and demonstrators in Tahrir Square is not only counterintuitive, but an insult to rational thought.

But really, La Rue doesn’t even try to hide his political agenda:

La Rue said the protesters are raising and addressing a fundamental issue. “There is legitimate reason to be indignant and angry about a crisis that was originated by greed and the personal interests of certain sectors,” he said. That’s especially the case when the bankers “still earn very hefty salaries and common folks are losing their homes.”

“In this case, the demonstrations are going to the center of the issue,” he said. “These demonstrations are exactly challenging the basis of the debate.”

So because he agrees with them, the OWS crew should be allowed to thumb their nose at the law? This is another novel construct with regard to “human rights.” Objective truth does not recognize ideological arguments, but rather the reasonable weighing of public and private interests to arrive at a logical conclusion. Logic escapes most OWS supporters. It certainly has nothing to do with La Rue’s efforts to condemn the national government for not interceding in local efforts to maintain order and protect the lives and property of all citizens - not just those granted privileged status for their noble ideas.

UPDATE”

This just in - another telling comparison between OWS and Tahrir Square…NOT:

A Suffolk Superior Court judge says Occupy Boston protesters can stay in an encampment on Dewey Square until Dec. 15.

After a four-hour hearing, Suffolk Superior Court Judge Frances McIntyre took both sides’ arguments under advisement and said she would issue a ruling in two weeks time. Until then, she said, an injunction that bars the city from booting the protesters remains in place.

The protesters called the decision a “victory.”

What Egyptian court did the Tahrir Square protestors file their injunction? Oh, wait…

A personal journey of discovery for me has ended today. Whatever skepticism I held about the efficacy of global warming theory has been satisfied by a new study that confirms the broad claims made by climate scientists that the earth is warming and that there is a very strong correlation with human activity that is causing it.

Still to be determined; how much and how fast the earth is warming and what threat this poses to civilization in the near, mid, and distant future.

I began as a believer in AGW theory back in the 1990’s. But as the political agenda of those promoting this theory became more and more evident — anti-capitalist, anti-western, and anti-growth –my skepticism kicked in and I began to pay more attention to the small, but growing group of scientists who dared question orthodoxy. Also contributing to my skepticism was the attitude of most of the climate change community who, rather than countering skeptics with reasoned, rational arguments, began a smear campaign, referring to their opponents as Nazis, equated them with Holocaust deniers, and accused them of being in the pay of big oil and other large corporations. This contributed to the notion that they had something to hide, or that they were guilty of cooking the books in deference to their pet theories.

Gradually, despite the politics being played, the science being challenged, and the refusal of many AGW scientists to grant their critics the normal legitimacy one would expect from those dedicated to the scientific process, my skepticism was melting. This piece at The Week last year gave me much food for thought, as one of the more credible skeptics, Bjorn Lomberg, had changed his mind and now supported AGW theory. Then, more recently, one of the major players in the Climategate affair, Michael Mann, was cleared of wrongdoing by the very well respected National Science Foundation. Mann had also been exonerated by the East Anglia lab whose emails became public in the Climategate matter.

My thinking on global warming had nearly come full circle. But for me, one of the most compelling skeptical arguments that resulted from the Climategate email dump, was that the temperature stations around the world that had contributed data over the last 150 years may have given false, or inaccurate measurements. The arguments in favor of that conclusion were logical, reasoned, and made a lot of sense.

Now a new study, led by a skeptical scientist and funded by the Koch Brothers among other skeptics, has confirmed, through independent analysis of the data, that research done by Mann and Dr. Phil Jones, as well as NASA and NOAA, was remarkably accurate in showing how the earth has warmed. There are now 4 graphs done by 4 different studies that confirm - unequivocally in my opinion — that the earth is warming and that it almost a certainty that it is because of human industrial activity.

The BBC:

The claim was that many stations have registered warming because they are located in or near cities, and those cities have been growing - the urban heat island effect.

The Berkeley group found about 40,000 weather stations around the world whose output has been recorded and stored in digital form.

It developed a new way of analysing the data to plot the global temperature trend over land since 1800.

What came out was a graph remarkably similar to those produced by the world’s three most important and established groups, whose work had been decried as unreliable and shoddy in climate sceptic circles.

[...]

“Our biggest surprise was that the new results agreed so closely with the warming values published previously by other teams in the US and the UK,” said Prof Muller.

“This confirms that these studies were done carefully and that potential biases identified by climate change sceptics did not seriously affect their conclusions.”

Some background on the group who conducted the new study, the Berkeley Earth Project:

The project was established by University of California physics professor Richard Muller, who was concerned by claims that established teams of climate researchers had not been entirely open with their data.

He gathered a team of 10 scientists, mostly physicists, including such luminaries as Saul Perlmutter, winner of this year’s Nobel Physics Prize for research showing the Universe’s expansion is accelerating.

Funding came from a number of sources, including charitable foundations maintained by the Koch brothers, the billionaire US industrialists, who have also donated large sums to organisations lobbying against acceptance of man-made global warming.

“I was deeply concerned that the group [at UEA] had concealed discordant data,” Prof Muller told BBC News.

“Science is best done when the problems with the analysis are candidly shared.”

The key is that the Berkeley group did not use the same method of analysis used by the East Anglia group (NASA and NOAA used similar analytical methods as East Anglia to reach their conclusions). The fact that their conclusions matched the other studies so closely would seem to confirm the accuracy of all the studies.

Though the broad parameters of the problem have now been confirmed to my satisfaction, skepticism is still in order for when scientists make claims that certain phenomenon like hurricanes, or droughts, or other events are the direct result of global warming. That’s not science — it’s politics. And as long as there is a political agenda associated with global warming, these claims will have to be backed up by solid data and analysis, and not simply spouted by rote as if we should swallow everything being promoted by AGW scientists.

Some sneering sot wants an “apology” from skeptics:

Bob Ward, policy and communications director for the Grantham Research Institute for Climate Change and the Environment in London, said the warming of the Earth’s surface was unequivocal.

“So-called ’sceptics’ should now drop their thoroughly discredited claims that the increase in global average temperature could be attributed to the impact of growing cities,” he said.

“More broadly, this study also proves once again how false it was for ’sceptics’ to allege that the e-mails hacked from UEA proved that the CRU land temperature record had been doctored.

“It is now time for an apology from all those, including US presidential hopeful Rick Perry, who have made false claims that the evidence for global warming has been faked by climate scientists.”

The essence of science is skepticism. Anyone who wants an apology from scientists who were acting like scientists in questioning theories needs to ask the same of the bulk of the physics community for being skeptical about Einstein’s theories, or those who railed against quantum mechanics. I think Ward should be the one apologizing for being so insufferably smug.

There is little doubt that this new study will change few minds in the conservative camp. Most would rather ignore new information that might alter their comfortable assumptions rather than accept what is now obvious. They will attack the messenger (omigod, it’s from BERKELEY!). Or they will posit conspiracy. Or they will reject simply because they are unable to get beyond the epistemic closure that sadly permeates conservative thinking. They will reassure themselves that they are right and everyone else in the world is wrong, telling each other that their false assumptions are still valid because no other information will be allowed to penetrate their closed little circle of right thinking orthodoxy.

For myself, the journey of self discovery continues. For the last 7 years, this blog has allowed me to put down in writing “the velocity” of my thoughts, holding them up to critical examination, and, after comparing my assumptions and conclusions to facts both new and old, adjusting — or not — my beliefs accordingly. It is part of what the philosophers refer to as “an examined life.” It may not fit with current right wing dogma to change one’s mind about anything and everything from the Iraq War to climate change. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.

It’s one of the only things that truly makes life worth the bother.

Has it really been 7 years? Nearly 3,700 posts, 4 million visitors, 5.5 million page views and a lot of emotional energy expended in that time.

Numbers don’t tell the story. When I started this blog, September 23, 2004, we were in the midst of a hard fought presidential campaign that was in doubt until well into election night. The Dan Rather Affair had just hit the blogosphere and after reading everything I could about the matter, commenting on blog posts didn’t seem to be enough. With the encouragement of Ed Morrissey, I opened a Blogger account and began posting. Until about a year ago, I rarely missed a day.

What followed was not quite the “Rise and Fall” of a blogger - more like a journey of self discovery. Turning inward, I found my voice. It was not a voice that many on the right wanted to listen to — a fact that me in my towering ignorance never expected. Nor did I help my cause much by lashing out on occasion against my detractors.

But it is, what it is, and that’s that. I found to my delight that there was still a market for rational, less ideological analysis, albeit a smaller and less profitable one. But with my two jobs at American Thinker and PJ Media, along with other independent articles sold to a couple of sites, I am making a better living than I ever thought possible as a writer/editor. And with a book in the works, who knows what the future will bring?

I have nothing really profound to say about the last 7 years. Blogs have changed dramatically — fewer links (sharing), many more bloggers, but still room for important voices to rise up and be heard. It is much harder to accomplish that today. And the Twitterverse and Facebook revolutions have altered the landscape even more.

A little over a year ago, I realized I was burned out and began writing less. That is going to change — as soon as I can divest myself of one of my jobs. The problem now isn’t so much that I’ve lost the desire to write but rather I have no time to do it. I am gearing up to restart this blog; a redesign, a new domain name (rickmoran.com), and much more frequent and extensive postings. In short, I am going to try and raise my profile on the right, hoping that there is a larger audience for my kind of comment and analysis than there was previously.

In previous years, I have used this occasion to thank those who have helped me along the way. I see no sense in repeating myself. You know who you are, and you know I will be eternally grateful.

The number 7 has had a mystical history in the history of the civilized world. All sorts of good things have been associated with the digit — except perhaps the Seven Deadly Sins, of which I am on number 5 and striving hard to finish before I flee my mortal coil and join my fellow demigods on Olympus. But I am hoping that that this will indeed be a Lucky 7 year and that you - my most loyal and beloved readers — will join me in the adventure.