Snowflakes in Hell

Via Glenn, on the subject of why terrorist atrocities don’t get any attention:

Yon’s story doesn’t get attention because it is humiliating.

It is humiliating because it is obvious that we media – and our allies in the state department, the legal trade, the NGOs, the Democratic Party, the UN, etc., - can’t do squat about such determined use of force.

Our words, images, arguments and skills can’t stop the killing. Only the rough soldiers and their guns can solve the problem, and we won’t admit that fact because the admission would weaken our influence and our claim to social status.

So we pretend Yon’s massacre – and the North Korean killing fields, the Arab treatment of women, the Arab hatred of Israel, etc. - doesn’t exist, and instead focus our emotions and attention on the somewhat-bad domestic things that we can ‘fix’ with our DC-based allies. Things such as Abu Ghraib, wiretapping, etc. When we ‘fix’ them, then we get status, applause, power, new jobs, ego, etc.

Please don’t be surprised. We media are an interest group not much different from the automakers, the unions, and the farmers.

What a stunning admission about the psychology of the media.

It’s an extremely unwise idea to fuck with people the Romans couldn’t conqueror.

Via Glenn

John Adams:

It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.

What? No beer?  Bah… Puritans!

I showed Bitter some new settings to use on her digital camera that allow setting the exposure time to a few seconds and opening the aperture a little.

Just twirling your standard sparkler. We’re sitting out on the patio watching what little fireworks the neighbors are bringing out. Bitter needs to move farther south where I can crack out shotgun launched pyrotechnics without having to worry about the police showing up.

No… not because of terrorists, but because of a tornado warning.   Apparently funnel clouds were spotted as the storm was approaching DC, so the park service decided to clear the mall.   I like thunderstorms, but Bitter, being from Oklahoma, does not.  There are also reports of golf ball sized hail.  Here things don’t look too terribly bad.

Oh well, there’s no reason for this to interrupt my drinking, which is, after all, the best way to celebrate our independence.

Dave Hardy has this to say about OSHA’s reasoning for regulating the ammunition industry out of business:

One commenter points out that OSHA cites, as a reason for the rule, a 1947 explosion. As OSHA admits, that was a huge detonation of ammonium nitrate fertilizer. I know a bit about it because it gave rise to a Supreme Court case construing the Federal Tort Claims Act.

Basically, in order to get fertilizer to Europe after WWII, the federal government cut a lot of corners. It allowed the stuff to be bagged when it was too hot for safety, allowed it to be put in waxed sacks (more waterproof, but if the wax melts it becomes the equivalent of fuel oil in a ANFO bomb), etc., etc.. The port of Texas City was full of boxcars of the stuff when some of it spontaneously ignited, then detonated — the resulting explosions essentially levelled the town.

Some people sued the government — it had, after all, ignored all the standard industry safety standards. They lost because the Supreme Court ruled that the situation fell under the “discretionary function exception” to the FTCA. The agencies that ignored the safety standards had discretion to do so, and had essentially made judgments that speed of production was worth the risk to life, and that was that.

A rather strange case to invoke for an argument that government regulation is necessary in order to make us safer.

Happy 4th of July to everyone.   Don’t blow your fingers off!

Rendell signed the bill that gives immunity to suits against landowners who open their land to hunters.