Self-quote of the day

The opposite of "natural" is "civilized".

(With respect to rhetoric sometimes pushed by people claiming that some behaviour, usually something "un-Christian", is also "unnatural".)

Welcome, Komrads!

Per the New York Times:

President Bush has signed a directive that gives the White House much greater control over the rules and policy statements that the government develops to protect public health, safety, the environment, civil rights and privacy.

In an executive order published last week in the Federal Register, Mr. Bush said that each agency must have a regulatory policy office run by a political appointee, to supervise the development of rules and documents providing guidance to regulated industries. The White House will thus have a gatekeeper in each agency to analyze the costs and the benefits of new rules and to make sure the agencies carry out the president’s priorities.

This strengthens the hand of the White House in shaping rules that have, in the past, often been generated by civil servants and scientific experts. It suggests that the administration still has ways to exert its power after the takeover of Congress by the Democrats.

The White House said the executive order was not meant to rein in any one agency. But business executives and consumer advocates said the administration was particularly concerned about rules and guidance issued by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Political officers, anyone? Could they be much more obvious about it?

Don't turn around, oh oh
Der Kommissar's in town, oh oh
And if he talks to you
And you don't know why
You say your life
Is gonna make you die...

Alles klar, Herr Kommissar?

He's at it again

VP Cheney was interviewed by Wolf Blitzer Wednesday. It's a pretty interesting interview overall, and the Vice President goes rather unhinged for a while. But I couldn't help noticing that one particular phrase popped up yet again (emphasis added):

BLITZER: The criticism is that you took your eye off the ball by going into Iraq and in effect reducing the focus of attention on al Qaeda and bin Laden.

CHENEY: It's just not true. I've heard that charge -- it's simply not true, Wolf. The fact of the matter is we can do more than one thing at a time and we have. And we've been very successful with going after al Qaeda. They're still out there, they're still a formidable force. But they're not nearly as formidable as they once were, in terms of numbers and so forth.

That reminded me of these hoary chestnuts I dug up from an old post. I guess since it had been almost a year, it was time to revisit and revise.

"It's important, always, to work to make sure you get information out like this as quickly as possible," McClellan said. "But it's also important to make sure that the first priority is focused where it should be...."

"I can't let this comment stand," Mr. Bush shot back, telling Ms. Albright and the rare assembly of her colleagues, who reached back to the Kennedy White House, that his administration "can do more than one thing at a time...."

PRESIDENT BUSH: No, I really don't because-- and I know we can do more than one thing at a time. We have got special operators and capable intelligence folks on the hunt all the time....

Gee, you'd almost think they were a bit touchy and nervous about their ability to do more than one thing at a time, wouldn't you? Nah, that's just crazy unhinged Bush Derangement Syndrome talking.

SotU Snark

Just a little tidbit out of last night's State of the Union address that jumped out at me as sounding a bit odd. Near the end of his speech, as he was wrapping things up, Bush addressed the country as a whole, and said, "We've been through a lot together." Both my roommate and I had the same thought—"Is he breaking up with us, or what?"

I just wish he were.

Fixing the Internets

With all due respect to Sadly, No!:

A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which he proposes to pay off with your money. — G. Gordon Liddy

A neocon is someone who feels a great debt from his fellow man, which he proposes to pay off with your children's money. — J. Owens

You're welcome.

Why context matters

Glenn Reynolds, a.k.a. Instapundit, a.k.a. Instaputz, a.k.a. Mobius Dick, wrote today:

It's as if the only good Republican President is a dead Republican President.

Unfortunately, he wrote it in the context of:

HOWARD KURTZ ON GERALD FORD REVISIONISM: "Another way of putting that is that many journalists, three decades later, are admitting that they misjudged Ford and were wrong about the Nixon pardon."
They said nice things about Reagan after he died, too, despite hating him in office, and they're already gearing up to do the same thing with George H.W. Bush, who was treated quite unfairly during his term. (See, e.g., the supermarket scanner story). It's as if the only good Republican President is a dead Republican President.

so he doesn't get full credit. Still, it's nice to see a nugget of truth crop up in there for once.

Via Blue Texan at Unclaimed Territory.