From the fact that people are very different it follows that, if we treat them equally, the result must be inequality in their actual position, and that the only way to place them in an equal position would be to treat them differently. Equality before the law and material equality are therefore not only different but are in conflict with each other; and we can achieve either one or the other, but not both at the same time
-- F.A. Hayak
The Huffington Post has this story today:
Hands Across the Sand Movement
Makes a Bold Visual Statement
Against Offshore Drilling
To which the blog, View From The Porch responds with this delightful post (included in whole):
So, the other day a bunch of hippies went to the beach, via various oil-powered conveyances. Once they got there, they all walked out on the sand and stood in a big line, joined hands and thought happy thoughts.
They didn't actually do anything except apologize to Mother Gaia, perhaps in faux dolphin-speak.
As children and adults formed a 150-yard chain along the Pacific coastline their message was clear. "We know that oil is not the answer," said Erkeneff. "The poor fishermen didn't ask for this. The ocean didn't ask for it. Now is the time. If not now, then when?"
Listen, hippie, those poor fishermen don't exactly row their boats out to sea, if you catch my meaning.
In sum total, what you people did was drive someplace where there wasn't a problem, complain about something you don't fully understand, get in the way of people who may actually be performing a function, and then do nothing, en masse, except hope that someone else notices your little snit and makes it all better.
My god, if there's a more perfect metaphor for the modern progressive movement, I've never seen it.
This is a portion of the transcript of last Friday's BP oil leak briefing.
INTRODUCTION BY ADMIRAL ALLEN: … We continue to produce a very aggressive skimming strategy. For the last several weeks, we've been trying to flow additional skimming capability into all parts of the gulf. This is one of those types of capability, as the spill expands from Louisiana to the entire panhandle of Florida, we are looking at every possible opportunity to bring skimmer capability in there.
[Late in the briefing there is this question from Carol Rosenberg with the Miami Herald]
Q: Admiral, thanks for taking my call. Whatever came of the idea to have the Navy provide skimmers to this effort? And have you guys waived the Jones Act? And if so, where are the foreign vessels?
ADMIRAL ALLEN: The discussions we are having with the Navy and other folks right now is the availability of skimmers that are on standby because they might be needed for a spill someplace else and how we might go about assessing the availability of those resources. So I would separate out the resources that the Navy had that they've already given to us and the discussions we're having across the entire country where we have equipment that's out there as a requirement—legal requirement to cover spill response of those areas and how we might free those up, and that's a work in progress inside the administration right now.
[As to the Jones Act] we have had no request for Jones Act waivers. If the vessels are operating outside state waters, which is three miles and beyond, they don't require a waiver. All that we require is an Affirmation of Reciprocity, so if there ever was a spill in those countries and we want to send skimming equipment, that we would be allowed to do that, as well, and that hasn't become an issue yet, either.
You can read the entire transcript here.
Here's an exerpt from
Chris McDougall's article about General David Petraeus's
workout regimen:
At 57, the newly minted leader of the U.S. efforts in Afghanistan still likes to start his day at sun-up with a five-mile run, blazing out each of those miles in under six minutes. Then it's straight to the weight room, where he ignores all those cushy-seated machines and heads for his torture device of choice: a single iron bar, lag-bolted eight feet overhead. A Petraeus pull-up is nothing as simple as hoisting your own body weight up and down a few dozen times. Instead, he slowly jack-knifes from the hips until his shoelaces are level with his face. After 20 of those babies, he drops to the floor for a crisp 100 or so pushups. And to recover from these self-imposed beatings, the general treats himself to a total of one meal per day and four hours of sleep.
Uff Da…
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