Turn her about, boys, and give ’em a good look at our stern chasers!
Busy day today folks, and tomorrow will be the same. Basically, we’re producing a video for the S.C. Association of Counties annual meeting. It’s their 50th anniversary, and we’re talking with folks about the highlights of that period from a county government perspective, which means we’re talking a lot about the Home Rule Act of 1975. This morning I interviewed Jean Toal, who was on that legislation’s conference committee as a freshman legislator. We had a couple of other interviews with key officials, both here in Colatown and up in Lancaster. More interviews tomorrow, ending with former Gov. Dick Riley up in Greenville.
So, fun stuff if you’re me and love to talk about Home Rule. (With Chief Justice Toal today, I even got to talk a bit about how Home Rule is subsidiarity in action, although that part won’t make the video.)
Here are some other things y’all might want to talk about:
- Despite talk of a military strike, Trump’s ‘armada’ sailed away from North Korea — And so we have the Trump corollary to the Nelson dictum: Never mind maneuvers, always go straight away from ’em!
- British prime minister makes stunning call for early elections amid Brexit fallout — Another side topic Justice Toal and I briefly touched on had to do with the virtues of a parliamentary system. And here we see one advantage, from the perspective of those who like to see government do stuff — a leader can consolidate power by calling an election more or less at will. Here’s an explainer from the Beeb for you Yanks…
- Columbia, Colonial Life Arena to host NCAA men’s tournament — But… but… I thought we just had that. What? You mean, in 2019? Come on, people — shouldn’t we be talking about baseball now?
- Mark Sanford gets an earful on health care, affair — It seems these townhall meetings just are not getting any more pleasant.
- Netflix’s biggest competitor? Sleep — Yeah, that’s about right — at my house anyway. Along about 10:45 tonight, I’ll be asking myself, One more episode of “30 Rock” or get 8 hours?
Whaddya think, Lemon? One more episode, or a good night’s sleep?
Related Posts
1. Can this administration be any more of an embarrassment?
3. The NCAA tourney is a pretty big deal for our community. NCs loss is our gain. Who would have thought this bathroom nonsense would be worth so much money?
Normal navies are pretty good at fooling the enemy as to their location. Our navy is so good, we can fool ourselves.
Right, fake news was never complicit? There are sound legal, military and political reasons for the purposeful deception (of DPRK commoners with illegal radios).
Of course, many U.S “journos” seem to have become veritable slaves to Obama,s habit of announcing such things to everyone far in advance against General Sun Tzu’s proven advice. The strategy is not to start a nuclear war with Kim, but is ideally to encourage one of his generals to mount a coup d’état, perhaps with China’s assist.
From personal experience, I can tell you that critical ships’ movement have been intentionally misdirected to the public for decades. If anyone needs to ask “why?”, he/she might as well just believe the media’s explanation.
Some derisively call Kim’s overthrow the “Cock-a-doodle-coup”.
What do you mean by “fake news,” Juan? (This is something I often wonder when people use the phrase.)
Which news, and what is “fake” about it?
Y’all, help me remember…
Wasn’t “fake news” used originally to refer to the stuff that Trump promoted through his Tweets, or that Breitbart pushed out in his behalf?
Or did he himself originate it when he started using it, in his awkward Orwellian fashion, to refer to real news? You know, one of those black-is-white assertions he is famous for, such as when he, of all people, called other candidates liars?
In its awkwardness, it sounds like an original Trumpism, so that might be how it was originally meant. It’s also typical of him in that, even though it raises more questions than it answers, it doesn’t bother to explain itself, and despite all, his fans seem to take it as gospel.
What I want to know is, what is it precisely that they are taking as gospel? What is it, precisely, that they believe is “fake” or true?
Brad, precisely what journos “took for gospel”: The media covered the entire week-long, fake news drama as a risky clash between two hardliners, Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump.
REALITY CHECK #1 – The Journos dismissed the fact that Vice President Pence would never visit the DMZ amid a credible threat of hostile action by Kim Jong-un or a military provocation by Trump. Instead, Pence conducted routine policy visits with our Asian allies.
REALITY CHECK #2: Journos either failed to verify the “Strike Forcess” heading and speed in a timely fashion, or (m0re likely) they failed to report what they actually knew. Very misleading — MSM’s credibility suffer as reporters fail to weigh accuracy ahead of political agendas.
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Again, U.S. strategy is about encouraging a coup d’état to remove the leftist-looking despot, or “Cock-a-doodle-coup”, Kim.
Juan, I think you’re confused about what a professional journalist can regard as a FACT.
It most certainly was NOT a fact that “Vice President Pence would never visit the DMZ amid a credible threat of hostile action.” That’s a surmise. It might seem to you a reasonable surmise, but it is not a fact.
What WAS a fact was that the duly constituted authorities, the people charged with keeping track of our military and the only sources journalists had to go by as to the group’s location (unless one was aboard one of the ships in the carrier group and had his GPS with him), told them that the group was headed to Korea.
So the media reported that FACT — that the folks in charge said that’s where the group was. That was the only fact available.
A journalist who instead wrote, “The people who are supposed to know where the ships are say they’re headed toward Korea, but I don’t believe it,” he would be expressing opinion, not reporting news.
Do you see the difference?
It’s essential that you do, and that the Trump administration — which does NOT seem to understand any of this — come to understand it. If you want the truth out there, tell reporters the truth, because they are going to report what you say, because the fact that you said it is true, and frequently the only thing the media have to go by.
There’s nothing “fake” about any of this. But it gets “fake” in a hurry when the people entrusted with our government lie, or don’t know what they’re talking about….
Brad, I see well the difference between a fact and a surmise and thank you for reminding readers that you do, as well.
You state (and I will agree) that, “It most certainly was NOT a fact that “Vice President Pence would never visit the DMZ amid a credible threat of hostile action.” That’s a surmise. It might seem to you a reasonable surmise, but it is not a fact.
As I had made clear, and is quite consistent with your exact Professional criterion (quoted above) the reports should have said, “people supposed to know where the ships are say they’re headed toward Korea” was a real fact. I also laid out the Navy’s longstanding policy of deceptions connected with critical ships’ movements.
During my service, hull numbers on submarines were painted out, crews were mislead about certain missions and destinations until departure (so rtheir relatives and foreign agents would not know).
And as you have quoted in this bog from time to time, “Loose Lips Sink Ships”.
The reason for the deception was not to avoid being attacked, it was to apply pressure to the Kim regime. He reacted as expected and his removal from power one way or another isalmost inevitable now .
Re #3: Bud, at this point it’s more a result of the Confederate flag being gone than any gain from NC’s bathroom bill–Greenville would not have gotten the recent first round games (that started the Gamecocks on their Final Four run) had the flag still been in place. In fact, since the NC legislature has passed some kind of compromise bill since the tourney (albeit one that many feel is not a sufficient turnaround), the NCAA OK’d putting tourney games back in NC, and in fact Charlotte, Greensboro, and Raleigh will all host first/second round games in 2018, ’19, and ’20 respectively. Columbia has never hosted a tourney game in the modern era of “March Madness” so it’s a pretty big deal, and it’s all really a result of the NCAA lifting its boycott of SC as a result of the flag coming down, plus still-increased tourism infrastructure in Columbia itself by time of the event itself. (The widened pedestrian walkways from Assembly down Greene Street to the river and plaza/amphitheatre diagonally across from CLA, should all be done and look really nice by March 2019.)
…I didn’t mean to say “walkways…to the river”—walkways/bike paths connecting on to the river may eventually come but that’s longer-range…these widened pedestrian paths I think will go for now to Gadsden Street at back of CLA. But I think there is planning to connect bike paths to the river and all the river path systems eventually. Anyway once the landscaping is in place the areas around CLA will look nicer still.
A couple days ago bud mentioned that Bob Taylor had passed and I came across Cringely’s obit for him. Interesting read http://www.cringely.com/2017/04/17/remembering-bob-taylor/
In that picture, it looks like he’s wearing a Star Trek uniform…