Freedom isn't free

(hat tip: @coloradorebecca)

The Council Has Spoken!

This week's results for the Watcher's Council vote are in, they've been posted over at Watcher of Weasels.  The winning council entry for the week was "Obama and Henry II; Obama and Martin Niemöller; and Obama and Al Capone" by Bookworm Room, and the winning non-council entry for the week was Zombie's post "Progracists" over at his eponymous blog.  Congrats!

Update: Last week's winners can be found here.

Ace on low information voters

In which Ace laments the voting public's lack of interest in Obama's many failings:

The low information voter barely understands what's happening now, let alone what may happen or the implications of what's happening.  Even if it's a fairly dire threat to democracy-- people agree to peaceful, civil rule only when they believe the power of government is not being used to target them for their beliefs.

But the low-information voter doesn't appreciate this.  He's too busy being Common-Sensical and Independently-Minded to fret any about serious threats undermining the rule of law and the civil order.  And he considers people who think about such things as Why Democracy Endures and Why It So Often Fails to be crazy, hyperideological extremists.

Low-information voters assume that everything's okay and everything will continue being okay because they ignore all warnings about things going off the rails.  Then, when the country is torn apart by a crisis, they go into Demanding Answers mode, angrily asking "Why weren't we warned?"

Ace has some ideas on how we can try to get through to these people.  I suppose it's worth a shot, but at the end of the day it's very difficult to reason someone out of a position that they never reasoned themselves into in the first place.

A Poem for Dzhokhar

You and your brother thought it would be fun to blow up a bunch of innocent people.

You smiled as you placed a bomb right next to an eight-year-old kid.

You really thought you'd get away with it.

You were wrong.

Now your brother is a speed bump and you have a hole in your throat.

Now you get to spend the rest of your life in a cell waiting to die.

How will it end?  With a needle in your arm or a shiv in your thigh?

Your lunatic mother can't save you.

Your idiot groupies can't save you.

I hope your cellmate loves your puppy dog eyes as much as they do.

Don't drop the soap.

Don't drop the soap.

Don't drop the soap.

Don't drop the soap.