Stories by Leon H Wolf
Posted at 12:22pm on Sep. 3, 2005 Let's Clear a Few Things Up
By Leon H Wolf
We are getting a LOT of email and commentary from folks who are simply desperate to assign blame for this hurricane and the lackluster response somewhere. Frankly, the whole exercise sickens me. After 9/11 (and in my opinion, this disaster is clearly worse), at least we had the decency to wait a couple of years before we appointed a finger-pointing commission (which, we are learning, failed to notice the since most important and necessary target for finger-pointing, but I digress). However, given that folks are determined to finger-point right now, before the situation is even returned to normalcy, let us by all means examine a few pieces of relevant evidence, while they are "in the raw" and before they get dismissed as "irrelevant" by the inevitable official finger-pointing commission.
Sometime after the hurricane hit, when nobody knew what the heck was going on, we decided that it might be worthwhile to discover if there were, in fact, any official plans to deal with just the eventuality that the city of New Orleans is currently facing.
It turns out, there was an official plan on the books for the officials of the city of New Orleans - and the reason it is damning is that it reads like a laundry list of things that were not done in preparation for this hurricane. Take a look at the horror below the fold:
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Posted at 12:56pm on Sep. 2, 2005 Bloggers Step Up
By Leon H Wolf
This is just a quick note to shout out some kudos to Captain Ed and the folks at Wizbang, who are both raising tons of cash to help in the relief effort. Be sure to check out their pages and contribute if you can.
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Posted at 11:52am on Sep. 2, 2005 Shall We Shoot the Looters?
By Leon H Wolf
Apart from all of the partisan bickering that's been going on over who should bear the blame for the results of Hurricane Katrina - one interesting question has repeatedly made its way to the forefront of the discussion: what should be done about the looters? Specifically, is the use of lethal force against looters justified?
There are well-intentioned folks in error on both sides of this debate. Some have advocated "shoot to kill" against the looters in a kneejerk reaction of human disgust. Some, on the other hand, cannot distinguish between looting and petty theft, and why the punishment should potentially be different for the two offenses.
Basic punishment theory teaches us that neither of these approaches are correct, and that the truth - as it frequently does - lies somewhere in the middle.
More below the fold:
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Posted at 12:37am on Sep. 1, 2005 A Little Further Upstream.
By Leon H Wolf
I hate doing a post on anecdotal evidence, but I've yet to see any media coverage of this whatsoever thus far, despite the fact that it is unquestionably happening. It is potentially possible that siginificant areas of the midsouth and southeast are running completely out of gasoline.
Update [2005-9-1 6:49:45 by Nick Danger]: Gas prices skyrocket as refineries stay closed
Read on.
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Posted at 12:36pm on Aug. 31, 2005 A National Object Lesson in Tennessee
By Leon H Wolf
“The problem is that the party has been hijacked by our own elected representatives”
Those of us who primarily vote Republican generally do so for a variety of reasons, each of them particular to our own favorite central Republican value. For those of us who consider ourselves to be "social conservatives," we are animated in large part by anger and frustration at the perceived moral direction of the country. For me, I am especially motivated to see the wholesale slaughter of the unborn in this country end.
What is lamentable and frustrating about the entire situation is that the national Republican party is throwing away our best chance to take out our anger on the left in the only way that matters: through policy. How is this happening? We turn to the state of Tennessee for answers.
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Posted at 3:09pm on Aug. 28, 2005 Am I Still Overreacting?
By Leon H Wolf
When the Washington Post first started covering John Roberts, and I accused the paper of attempting to slime John Roberts as a racist, a lot of folks seemed to think that I was overreacting and/or that my media bias detector was picking up non-existent signals. It appears, however, with the release of the newest WaPo hit piece on Roberts, that the problem is that I wasn't being paranoid enough. In an article entitled, "In Article, Roberts's Pen Appeared to Dip South," the Post breathelessly informs us that:
When John G. Roberts Jr. prepared to ghostwrite an article for President Ronald Reagan a little over two decades ago, his pen took a Civil War reenactment detour.
A Civil War reenactment detour? A pen can do this? Luckily, the Post tells us how!
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Posted at 2:23pm on Aug. 28, 2005 Sunday Open Thread
By Leon H Wolf
Because a little open thread never hurt anybody.
Enjoy.
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Posted at 2:46pm on Aug. 25, 2005 Sound the Refrain
By Leon H Wolf
Yesterday, I posted my War Weary piece in a number of different places because I felt that it was important to grasp some historical perspective in the face of growing public uneasiness about the war, and most especially, a growing belief that complete and immediate withdrawal from Iraq is the right solution. The post, in its various locations, was picked up by a number of liberal hotspots and drew a lot of "interesting" commentary that I'll get to later.
The line, divorced from the rest of the post, that seemed to really get liberals frothing was when I said that the Iraq war was "barely a war." Some folks have been interested to know whether I will retract that statement. The answer is no. Of course, all war is war, and all those who fight in war on behalf of their country are performing a brave service. But, in the context of comparing the Iraq war to other conflicts in which America has been involved, specifically World War II and Vietnam, the inescapable point of history is that in contrast to most major American conflicts, the Iraq war has indeed been small in terms of the loss of American lives. Infinitesimally small, in fact.
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Posted at 3:00pm on Aug. 24, 2005 War Weary.
By Leon H Wolf
There are times when I am ashamed of my generation, although not for the reasons that you might assume. I am not naive enough to think that our generation is the first to struggle with difficult moral issues, and to be pulled through the mire of various kinds of depravities. Indeed, when it comes to being morally reprehensible, there is truly "nothing new under the sun."
What often disappoints me about my generation is the shocking lack of willingness that we have to defend ourselves and our culture from threats - and the weak-kneed lack of resolve to see even the most banal conflict through to its conclusion. Nowhere has this become more evident than in the current conflict in Iraq.
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Posted at 11:23pm on Aug. 21, 2005 Abortion is Funny! Just Ask Larry King!
By Leon H Wolf
Before I get into the actual "meat" of this story, I should probably offer a word of explanation as to why I am covering a Larry King broadcast that first aired ten days ago. The answer is very simple: I almost never watch television. Especially when said television is CNN. With the advent of the internet, whenever a talking-head show is scheduled to appear with a guest I'm actually interested in, I'll just either tune in on the web or (more often) snatch a transcript off the internet a couple hours after the fact.
This particular story slipped under my radar because the guest on the Larry King show in question was Bill Maher, piece of human filth extraordinaire, who generally has all the moral compass of your average member of the Khmer Rouge, as evidenced by statements like this from the very Larry King show in question:
More. . .