Dive! Dive! Dive!

The Pens are playing awful enough in this final series that crap like this just really adds insult to injury.

Says Coach Therien:

We took two penalties tonight on the goalie. We never take penalty to the goalie in the playoff. I'll tell you something, I reviewed those plays. He's a good actor. He goes to players, and he's diving. Took away our power play. Got to get focused. I know our players are frustrated right now. It's tough to play the game. But Osgood did the same thing against Dallas under Ribeiro.

Our team never go to goalie. We never did it. And we don't target the goalie. But this is, want to talk about experience, he goes to players, and he knows what to do, I guess.

Good blog-based coverage of the sadness that was Game 2 here. Hopefully the Pens can turn things back around at home for game 3.

([meekly]: Go Pens!)

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Fantastic:

After pretty much every debate this month I've had David Bowie's Changes stuck in my head... and I actually came very close to putting something like this together myself; I'm glad someone else found the time to (and did a great job with it).

NewtTube

I don't care much for TV reruns or reality programs, so the writer's strike has left me searching for something new to watch on TV.

By virtue of my AppleTV, I have all of YouTube available to me from the comfort of my couch in the living room. Of course, the standard fare of YouTube isn't of much greater interest to me than reruns, but like the Internet generally, there's some good stuff scattered through the vast wasteland that is YouTube. Some of the good stuff, which I'm now thoroughly enjoying, is a whole slew of lectures from Newt Gingrich. Newt apparently even has his own YouTube account which makes finding more videos of him super easy.

And the more I watch, the more I like Gingrich and what he has to say.

I don't think most Americans have a positive view of Newt, and I think that's probably deserved. When you think of Newt, you probably think of the Connie Chung interview, the government shutdown, and the Clinton impeachment - none of which offer favorable impressions for the Speaker of the House who oversaw them.

Letting that all be as it may, today's lecture-giving Newt is a guy serious about finding solutions to America's problems, and in many of the 5 minute clips of him on YouTube he offers more common sense policy suggestions than I think I've heard in all the Republican and Democratic debates combined.

I work for a management consulting company. When we meet with clients, they could care less about what our "business philosophy" is. All they care about is we have such and such a problem - how can you help us solve it?. Refreshingly (and in stark contrast to all the '08 presidential candidates), this is the style Newt brings to his speeches.

While the Republican nominees debate "Sanctuary Mansions", Newt is laying out the actual problems with immigration and actual solutions that the American people would get behind.

(Note to the Republican nominees: Don't tell me you're pro-life, tell me how you'll get us closer to doing away with abortion. Don't tell me you're against illegal immigration, tell me how you'll fix it. Don't tell me "the best defense is a strong offense" in regard to Islamic-fascism, tell me the actual steps you will take to defeat it. Don't tell me you are for limited government, tell me the strategy you have for getting spending under control, reducing government intrusion into daily lives, and reducing inefficiencies. [In short - be like Newt!])

In addition to this post, I'm now planning on making a number of posts to highlight Newt videos from time to time. Whatever your political leanings, I think you'll find them worth your while. And, maybe -- just maybe, getting people more exposure to the solutions-oriented policy approach he takes will raise the bar for the '08 (and beyond) presidential and congressional candidates.

The YouTube Democratic Republican Debate

Something to file in the "What? Media Bias? I'm Shocked, Shocked I Tell You!" file...

It appears a good chunk of the questions CNN used for the Republican YouTube Debate were questions asked by Democratic activists.

Michelle Malkin has the details ("Digging out more CNN/YouTube plants: Abortion questioner is declared Edwards supporter (and a slobbering Anderson Cooper fan); Log Cabin Republican questioner is declared Obama supporter; lead toy questioner is a prominent union activist for the Edwards-endorsing United Steelworkers").

When it comes to politics and the media, you just can't make this stuff up!

Welcome to the Endarkenment, Bro

In the last month and a half, between traveling for work and moving, I haven't had much time to blog. It looks like I'm going to start things back up talking on the subject I effectively left off with though.

It's yet-another-cop-tasering. And, really, I'm late to this particular story - it made it's way through the blogosphere last weekend. I care enough about the topic to dive in a week late though.

If you haven't seen this tasering, well, here's the 2-part "uncut" version via YouTube:

It's approaching the point at which I just don't know what to say. I guess in lieu of my own thoughts, I'll simply quote Billy Beck's (apologies for the profanity in the quote):

I cannot conclude otherwise: this sonofabitch of a cop needs to get stuffed into a cage, forthwith.

Once more, children: we are cultivating exactly the very mentality that once herded human beings into cattle-cars without hearing the sounds of its own conscience. These automatons -- these political homunculi -- are being cultivated to not reason to a moral conclusion on their own powers.

I say that Tasers are only accelerating this dynamic: touted as "non-lethal" (which is now known nonsense), they are more and more instant resort to force exactly where human beings ought to put their minds to work. And I will not entertain any judy-boy bullshit about how hard cops have it. Fuck them. I long for an America where cops were men, able to rationally face the dangers of the work that they chose, instead of walking "policy" statements in action without minds and morals.

Pay serious attention to his whole issue. This is going nowhere good, in a big-time hurry.

Dale Franks of QandO borrowed the above mentioned Billy Beck's term "the Endarkenment" in his commentary on this and I think it appropriate to do the same.

Some choice quotes from Dale Frank's commentary:

Morons cannot maintain a sophisticated, technological civilization. And slowly, and ever so surely, that's what we're becoming.

And it's not just the lack of critical thought. It's the lack of being able to think morally or philosophically. take a look at this: [embedded video of the tasering]

And there's something I want you to notice. It's important. The cop pulls his taser immediately. The man is offering no threat, the officer tells him to get out of his car, walks back to the RMP cruiser, drops off his ticket clipboard, and draws his taser before asking the man to comply. In the absence of any threat at all, the officer initiates force.

The rules for dealing with the police are now getting much simpler. Comply, instantly, or be tasered and arrested.

...

We're losing America. I hope you enjoyed it while it lasted.

Today it was reported that the Utah Department of Public Safety has come to the conclusion that the officer's "actions were lawful and reasonable under the circumstance." If that's the case, might I suggest Utah change their laws such that these action can't be consider lawful?

Over at HotAir, all the commenters who thought the tasering was justified and said as much in the comments of HotAir's original blog post on this story are taking the Utah DPS conclusion as evidence they were correct. For instance, "JetBoy" comments:

*pats self on back*

I’ve got the “bragging rights”! I never doubted for a moment the officer was well within his authority to use the taser on that dude.

You have to always remember…the officer who pulls you over has no idea who you are or what you’re capable of. Cops get shot or worse all the time from simple routine traffic stops. And expecially since the officer was alone, he has every right to protect himself from someone who repeatedly refused the officer’s demands.

JetBoy - enjoy your bragging rights. Myself, I'd prefer actual rights. Like the kind that should be keeping people - even people that act like jerks - from being tasered by cops.

I think the sheer number of HotAir commenters that don't seem to find anything wrong with what this cop did is what I find most disturbing. This idea of "screw the average citizen, we've got to protect our cops!" How contrary to how things should work. As this coming from the commenters at a conservative blog.

I'll just conclude with this:

• We're giving our police military equipment.


• We're using SWAT teams to take down non-violent offenders.


• Citizens getting involved with police are engaging in actions that many other citizens identify as not causing any threat to the police, but are getting tasered by the police anyway.


• I'm officially concerned.

Update: The good old days?

Apparently It's National Excessive Force Month

Wow.

First we had this make national news.

Now it's this:

Details.

And - here's a third September police taser story:

Autistic Teen Tasered in Calif.

TUSTIN, Calif. (AP) — Sheriff's officials defended their use of a Taser stun gun to subdue an autistic teenager who left a social services center where he was being treated.

"It was necessary," sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino said in defense of the use of a Taser stun gun to subdue 15-year-old Taylor Karras.

He said the teen was running in and out of traffic and is lucky to be alive.

"If that were your son, would you want him Tased or hit by a car?" Amormino asked.

The teenager bolted from a social services center in Westminster on Monday and had walked 15 miles when sheriff's deputies received a call of someone running in and out of traffic on busy Newport Avenue. Sheriff's Lt. Larry Jones said a deputy fired the Taser after a second car had to swerve.

The teen was home with his parents Tuesday, uninjured and no charges were filed. But his parents said they believed deputies overreacted.

"They should have been on alert that there was a missing autistic teenager in the area," William Karras said.

It's stuff like this that makes me dramatically more worried about my fourth amendment and related rights being violated by some over-the-line local cop than anything the Bush administration has been doing to fight terror.

(Ultimately, I wish neither would happen - but given a choice would you rather be tasered by a local cop or have your international phone calls to suspected terrorists listened to? I know my preference.)

Andrew Meyer Tasered at U Florida John Kerry Event

I came across this via HotAir.

To use the event summary from Wikipedia: "On September 17, 2007, police from the University of Florida forcibly removed Andrew Meyer, a 21-year-old student, from a forum with Democratic Senator John Kerry, restraining him with the help of a taser."

And because it seems everyone at the event had a video phone, there are tons of videos of the tasering on YouTube. Here's a random selection of three of them:

After watching a handful of the video accounts I was extremely disturbed by the whole thing and did some googling and found eye witnesses from both the right and the left side of the political fence shedding light on some important back story that happens just before where the YouTube videos pick up.

I'll quote from a DailyKos posted eyewitness account:

I was at the Kerry speech today, sitting 2 rows away from all the action. I'll let you know how it really went down.

The forum was going to be over at 2 pm, and Kerry spoke for so long that the Q and A portion had to be shortened. ... While the final question was being read, some douchebag [Meyer] ran down the aisle, grabbed the mic from the other side of the room, interrupted the kid who was talking, and started yelling at Kerry ... and everyone was getting annoyed. The cops are all over him in no time and try to escort him out, but he starts yelling and resisting. Kerry insists that they let him stay and even agrees to answer his question.

After the interrupted guy's question was answered, Kerry keeps his promise and lets the angry guy talk. This is the point where people started taking their cameras and phones out. All the videos floating around youtube start around here.

In light of that background, the police acted somewhat more understandably, but I still think this is an outrage.

Granted, this guy is a huge pompous jerk. But he clearly wasn't doing anything illegal.

If the forum really was essentially wrapped up by the time Meyer got to the mic, Kerry should have just had the mic turned off and said some closing remarks and been done with it. Or, the UF police should have acted like private security (the role they were playing at this thing), not invoking arrest-power and escorted Meyer out of the auditorium. (After watching the videos, by the time they tasered him, Meyer was already willing to simply leave ... the police only tasered him so they could subdue him to keep him under their physical constraint so they could arrest him and take him to jail ... neither of which they should have been doing!)

What I'm also in awe about is that Kerry let this just continue on. He claims that by the tasering, the whole thing was going on in the back of the auditorium where he could no longer see it, but I don't buy it. Some jerk starts asking you confrontational questions and gets dragged off by police and you manage to be able to divert your attention away from it?? Hardly.

In any event, if you think police aren't arresting and tasering people for obnoxious-but-legal behavior (or driving with working tail lights...) may I ask that you wake up?

And to right-wing-blogs and commenters that seem to be reveling in this ... cut it out. There is no enjoyment to be had in police tasering someone doing nothing arrest-worthy. Even if the taser victim is an obnoxious left-wing moonbat.

Palin for VP Talk on KTUU News

(H/T: Palintology)

John Edwards and Hateful Speech

Watching this clip on YouTube I came away agreeing with the substance of what Edward's was saying but almost laughing to myself because the story of Edwards' campaign really doesn't line up very well with the tirade against hateful speech he gave on Hardball.

First there was the Marcotte thing. Then you've got Elizabeth Edwards calling her neighbor a "rabid rabid Republican" and insinuating Bush is a racist.

Not quite a campaign free of hateful speech...

With the perceived hypocrisy in mind, I did what any iMovie-equipped, YouTube-account-holding blogger would do, and here's what we've got:

Credits

• John Edwards Hardball footage - the above mentioned YouTube clip
  
• Elizabeth Edwards Hardball footage - clip on HotAir
  
• Michelle Malkin, reading Amanda Marcotte - Vent clip
  
• Amanda Marcotte's hateful speech - the Pandagon blog
  
• Music - Funkstörung, "Wearing Old Armani"

Praising Through The Storm

Wow. Praise God for the victories they've had (and offer prayers for continued health for this little guy!)

This is the kind of thing that makes wading through the vast wasteland that is YouTube worth while. Again: Praise God!

More Indulgence - This Time With Peeps

It's like "YouTube day" here at Kah Zoohl List...

Some more political, but, light-hearted entertainment: HamNation: The Week in Peeps (Reprise). A great re-cap of the week.

And I'm a Progressive

Yes, yes, this is an intellectually lazy indulgence, but I found it humorous:

Slightly less intellectually lazy, but equally enjoyable (for me) was this pair of comments on the video over on YouTube:

Grebrook: Lame and pathetic. It's the same old meaningless Republican talking point being kicked around, except they put it on youtube. There's nothing funny about it. In actuality, Dems never pretended to be "conservative" on natioanl security issues, they promised to withdraw the troops. So get your facts straight. You lost because America isn't conservative.

robertjag: Uh, the dems promised to withdraw the troops. So why haven't they? They can kill the funding which ends the war. Why are they NOT voting to kill the funding? I thought it was the will of the people! Why did they LOSE 14-80 in the house??

Good Friday & Web 2.0 (3 of 3 - YouTube)

This is the third in a series of three posts exploring the intersection of Good Friday and "Web 2.0". You may want to begin with the first post.

YouTube:

In the realm of "un-wired" media there is perhaps no song which more poignantly expresses the gravity and hope of Good Friday than Thief by Third Day. It explores what the experience may have been like for one of the thieves crucified next to Jesus.

Likewise, there is perhaps no film that explores the events of Good Friday with more piercing soberness than The Passion of the Christ.

YouTube user "Martincook06" brings those two works together with this video:

The Future of Political Discourse?

Here's hoping this doesn't represent the future of political discourse:

The current soundbite-oriented state of things is certainly devoid of depth, but at least it still lets the discourse hover around the issues. One minute market-y spoof ads don't even have that much...

(Of course, "Read my lips: no new taxes" certainly doesn't have the entertainment appeal of YouTube spoofs...)

(Also, did anyone else notice the irony of the very un-1984 message the spoof has Hillary delivering? "We all need to be part of the discussion"; "I don't want people who already agree with me"; "I hope to keep this conversation going"; etc?)