Clipping blog

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Ding, Dong The Tyrant Might Possibly Be Dead, According to Some Reports. Posted: 20 Oct 2011 09:25 AM PDT Take this with a huge grain of salt, but the Libyan rebels have reported that Muammar Gaddafi is dead (via memeorandum). Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi died of wounds suffered on Thursday as fighters battling to complete an eight-month-old uprising against his rule overran his hometown Sirte, Libya’s interim rulers said. His killing, which came swiftly after his capture near Sirte, is the most dramatic single development in the Arab Spring revolts that have unseated rulers in Egypt and Tunisia and threatened the grip on power of the leaders of Syria and Yemen. “He (Gaddafi) was also hit in his head,” National Transitional Council official Abdel Majid Mlegta told Reuters. “There was a lot of firing against his group and he died.” On one hand, we’re down one more bloodthirsty and thoroughly evil tyrant and that’s a net good for the world. On the other hand, I’m not sure how the White House could have bumbled things worse and still ended up with a dead Gaddafi. We jumped into Libya — well, truthfully we didn’t jump in so much as the President pushed us in without warning — without a clear goal or good information on the rebels we went to help. At the time, I summed up our Libyan strategy as concisely as I could. So, here's what we know so far. In days or weeks we'll hand over the leadership we don't have of this war that's not a war, the object of which is to remove Muammar Qadaffi from power but not any time soon or not even at all, to one of our coalition partners who may or may not still be a coalition partner so we can begin our exit strategy that's not an exit strategy. That's the sort of clear direction you get from a thinker who's not a thinker and a leader who's not a leader. In the days not weeks weeks not months many months that followed, our MSM largely ignored the war into which our Nobel Peace Prize-winning President embroiled us. We still don’t know if Gaddafi’s death constitutes victory in Libya or if there are other goals we don’t know about yet to be accomplished. I’m not sorry he’s dead, if he really is. Every day we spend without a tyrant of Gadaffi’s caliber is a good day for all of us. He won’t be around to torture to kill any more innocent people. He won’t blow up another airliner full of men, women, and children. The people of Libya have a chance to live in freedom, assuming we don’t turn them over to a new bunch of Islamist oppressors. But that last point is the real issue here? Those of us not named Barack Obama don’t really know what we’re doing there, so we can’t tell whether Muammar Gaddafi’s death, if confirmed, was a feature of our war-fighting plan or an unintended consequence.

Clearing the Browser Tabs – Another Day, Some More Debt Thursday Edition Posted: 20 Oct 2011 03:10 AM PDT   As if the coming debt tsunami, our tepid economic growth, and high unemployment aren’t enough, there is one more fiscal problem in front of us that we’re going to have to handle in the very near future. USA Today reported that outstanding student loan debt topped a trillion dollars (via memeorandum). We added $100 billion to that debt last year. There is no good reason for that debt to exist. College degrees, as I have said here and on The Delivery many times, are overrated and most people do not need them. Yet, we have an employment system that requires them for even the most mundane entry-level jobs and so our young people enter the world burdened down with debt instead of with some money in their pocket they could use to establish themselves as responsible and productive adults. We shouldn’t accept that. We have hamstrung at least one generation at a time when we need their energy and productivity the most. It could cost us dearly. And now, links! Have you seen this teleprompter? I said last night that Herman Cain’s poll numbers would bump up after last night’s debate even though he did not perform well. Even though the attacks against him were fair on the merits, they came across to me as nasty or condescending. When several of the candidates teamed up on Cain, it looked like a dog-pile and I don’t think folks like that very much. If his fellow candidates’ goal was to marginalize him, I don’t think they succeeded at all. He’s a contender now. Jim Pethokoukis absolutely crushed the income inequity myth (via memeorandum). Unfortunately, I think it’s going to take more than reason and facts to make it go away forever. We’re going to have to toss a few elected officials who still believe the fantasy out of office. I am still torn on whether Israel should have released over a thousand Hamas killers to get back their kidnapped son Gilad Shalit. This post from Victor Davis Hanson summed up the situation as well as I’ve seen it done. Dear motorists, please stay the heck out of the passing lane until you have to pass someone or let someone onto the highway from an on-ramp. If you do that, we can all drive a lot faster and be safer than we are right now. If 400 children over three years had been physically or sexually abused in Catholic schools, that would be a really big story, right? It’d probably make news around the world? Just checking. Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding through the glen. Robin Hood, Robin Hood, hilariously misunderstood by a bunch of whiny hipsters. Odd, I always thought of Jesse Jackson, Jr. as more of a Stooge. This is exactly what I was afraid would happen to The Walking Dead.

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