evolution

MEMORANDUM
TO: People of Earth
FROM: j.d.
RE: The Iranian “revolution”

So a bunch of young, smart, technologically capable Iranians are protesting¹ a crooked election that re-installed the mullahs’ golden boy once again. While that’s a healthy response and all, wake me up when something new happens. You people realize that the other guy, Mousavi, doesn’t even get to the position he’s in unless he passes the mullahs’ muster at some point, right?

There is also no reason on Earth to believe that any government that the people of Iran would be materially different save for the corruption, especially vis-a-vis the United States.

So, count me among the people that aren’t getting too worked up over something that will ultimately amount to nothing.

1. 1979 called, and wants its story back. [↩]

Just when you were getting used to the quiet: George Tiller, legendary (or infamous, depending) Wichita late-term abortion provider, was shot and killed this morning. Due to the many internal conflicts and contradictions I have about this man, this issue, and this place, this is going to be a disjointed post, with updates interspersed throughout as I collect my thoughts, and possibly take a break to go and shout at some inanimate objects.

UPDATE [13:21] It appears from the available information now that Tiller was inside the church when he was shot. It might have been a member of the church. A physical description of the perp, with a description of the car and a license plate number, is all over Creation now. Hopefully it’s just a matter of time before the perp is found.

UPDATE [13:54] The J-W is claiming that he was serving as an usher for the service when he was shot, confirming part of the above. Also, for some reason, I descended into the comment thread there to read it. It’s more or less what I expected: out of every 100 commenters, one troglodyte shows up to congratulate the shooter, four poor souls mutter some other pablum because they’re just as conflicted as (and more able to keep quiet than) I am, and the other 95 dial the drama up to “Andrew Sullivan”, compare Christians to terrorists, declaim against the clinic bombings that occur every day, and then go home. O to be on another planet for the next few months…

UPDATE [14:09]: Operation Rescue finally learned some media savvy and is looking for the deepest hole they can find to hide in. They put out a statement on their Web site denouncing the killing, and now it’s unavailable. I’d guess that there are a number of people in every newsroom on Earth who thinks it was one of them. Maybe it was. But I’d also bet there’s quite a number of those folks who would like a few minutes alone with the shooter before the Wichita cops and Kansas Highway Patrol get to him.

UPDATE[14:14]: Eagle Twitterers say that the suspected shooter has been caught. No details.

UPDATE [15:04]: Bad news: This site crashed for 45 minutes. Good news: Nobody’s reading it, so nobody missed anything.

Police have left the church where Tiller was shot; attention has apparently been turned to the man the Eagle and others say is in police custody.

And one more thing: You think, and I think, that the person who shot George Tiller was probably at one point an anti-abortion activist. There are a whole bunch of people who are going to look dumb if he wasn’t.

Another old Kansan speaks from another place. On days like this I wish I was in another place too.

UPDATE [15:26]: The CBS affiliate in Wichita says that the suspected shooter was caught — in Gardner, KS, which is in western Johnson County outside the KC metro area. That’s about four hours’ drive from Wichita on I-35 and about 30 minutes from Lawrence. The arrest took place about an hour and a half ago.

UPDATE [15:32]: This is going to be one of those “clear, bright line” moments that I’ve spoken of before. Most of the time I think those are good things… most of the time. This wouldn’t be one of them.

UPDATE [15:50]: This is getting weird. The Eagle Twitterers posted a video that shows Tiller’s clinic being searched by dogs. Something may not be quite as it seems here.

Also, some more thoughts: Regardless of how you feel about Tiller — I am on the record in plenty of places on this site — this most likely was a calculated act of political terrorism, period. There does not and cannot exist any justification for it.

In what some might find to be the irony to end all ironies, such an act will render the suspect eligible for the Kansas death penalty. I’m not an advocate for that, either, but considering the enormous political pressure that will be brought to bear, the shooter might find out just how much he has lost this war.

UPDATE [16:32]: The Eagle’s story has been updated with some details about the shooter, a 51-year-old male, who was driving a vehicle registered to someone in Merriam.

UPDATE [19:38]: The suspect that was arrested in Johnson County and returned to Wichita has been identified by the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department as one Scott Roeder.

Charles Johnson of LGF did some digging, and found a creepy post from two years ago under the suspect’s name on an Operation Rescue forum, among other things. It looks like that hole’s not quite going to be deep enough or dark enough. Thus does everyone — leftists and abortion opponents alike — have their fantasies come true…

UPDATE [20:39]: Time to call it a night. I don’t believe there will be too many more facts to come out at least for now, and what’s to come in the immediate future, particularly in the cacophony of idiots called “the blogosphere”, will be both fact-free and insufferable to watch.

I might have more to say on this topic tomorrow. If I can stand it, that is.

MORE:The above link is to the J-World.. Here are some others:

• The Topeka Capital-Journal.
• The Wichita Eagle. The Eagle is also Twittering.
• MSNBC.
• If you’re a blog fan you should probably look at memeorandum, but I didn’t and don’t plan to. I just don’t want to know. Here’s the link.

Previously on evolution:

• All mentions
• All previous posts on abortion politics.
• Abortion opponents did it to themselves (1 | 2)
• A counter to what you’re going to be hearing and seeing in the next few days. [UPDATE 15:39]: J-W via AP, the first of many to run it up the flagpole.

There is nothing quite so formulaic and predictable as political blog commentary, except perhaps political blog commentary on the appointment of a Supreme Court justice.

This particular bit of Kabuki theater does not interest me in the least. All parties to this have the same goal: to find a way to bend the words of the Constitution into a shape that grants them power. The only possible objection any of them have is that it isn’t their candidate.

It almost doesn’t matter who fills the seat anymore.

In a way, I’m glad I’ve barely had the time to think, much less to blog.

The events and commentary going up around the “Tea-Party” protests (which were needed about five years ago) really speaks for itself. It draws a clear, bright line, one which I’ve felt has been needed for a long time. Of course my own sympathies lie with most of the protesters. (Not, like, the tinfoil hatters and stuff.)

There is so much to say that I don’t have the time to do it all, but I’ll note that I sometimes grin with joy at the sneering, vile condescension, and defensive rage that the protests — most of which were spontaneous — have sparked in this and other media, particularly in one part of it¹. These people are revealing quite a lot. Of course, if you’ve understood anything I’ve ever said on this blog you knew what was coming.

They’ve gone on long enough that all the attention hounds and tin-foil types are starting to flock to them; that is natural and should be anticipated and countered by any of those people (if there are any) who want to keep the momentum going.

The incurable black-hearted cynic in me wants to treat these protests like the “nascent student movement for freedom!!!1! in Iran!!1!!1!”, as in “Call me when you’re ready to actually do something”, as in sending a great number of career politicians, Republican and Democrat alike, scurrying for the want ads.

This is really random and unfocused, but I have some time tonight, so I’m just dumping out my thoughts. I’ve been feeling the itch to write, but due to actuarial exams I can barely focus on anything else.

1. What a difference six months makes! [↩]

This was the piece on the Newsweek piece I promised, but it’s unfinished. I’m not going to finish it, because there is no point in doing so. I just needed to post something today.

-----

I bet you saw this Newsweek piece linked at Instapundit, or you just saw the headline in your RSS reader, and you breathed a sigh of relief. No longer, you thought, do I have to police every single word I say or write for the possibility of racism, particularly that which I’m not even aware of. You have been absolved, or so you thought, by a member in good standing of the Mainstream Media™.

The author (in this case Newsweek’s Raina Kelley) even displays a bit of good humor and common sense; there were passages that even I chuckled at.

With a few key phrases, however, Ms Kelley gives away this particular game.

Make no mistake – it is a game, for those for whom it is desired that rhetorical meaning shift as the sands of the deserts. An accusation of racism — the mere accusation of it — as Ms Kelley accurately notes, can ruin someone’s life. Racist views mark, to most people (me included), a lack of education or a type of upbringing that few today would desire.

Racism, today, is most often a weapon used by those with a will to power to silence or attempt to intimidate opposition. We have discussed many times before what type of politics most often coincide with that will.

If you do not, as I do not, share those politics, then you should know one thing: If you breathed a sigh of relief when you read this article, if you nodded your head in approval, if you said “It’s about time”, then you have formally lost this game (which, as I hope I’ll show, would not have and could not have been won).

…

[UPDATE:] … and this is probably how the rest of this post would have gone, were I to have had the energy and mental acuity to finish it.

I am relieved today – relieved that a governor from a backward hinterland state who appears in fashion magazines and shoots turkeys in controlled conditions can serve at the highest levels of government.

After the last election cycle, I was starting to get worried.

*

Anyone notice that I didn’t post about Rachael Ray’s terrorist scarf… whoops. The keys slipped. I meant to ask if anyone noticed that I hadn’t posted on the Burger King “Allah” ice cream cone… damn. Happened again. What I really meant to ask was had anybody noticed that I hadn’t posted about those editorial cartoons?

What – not those editorial cartoons?

Oh, those.

Well? Didja notice?